NADA to intensify testing for India’s potential Tokyo Games participants
The National Anti-Doping Agency has stated that they would take more tests prior to the Tokyo Games of the athletes likely to represent India next year and that it wants only clean athletes to that. Nada DG Navin Agarwal also explained how targeting testing has helped the agency to catch doping.
With the Olympics coming, India’s doping cases have also increased manifold and NADA has been busy cleaning the tray that is likely to be sent to Japan. Agarwal has revealed that while the final set of athletes would only be decided before the Games, the agency has started all the pre-Games work to reduce the malpractices in the country.
“We want that only clean, genuine athletes represent India in Tokyo. There’s still one year to go for the Olympics and athletes will be busy competing in qualifiers and other championships. The sports federations would only prepare the final list of athletes closer to the Games,” said Agarwal, reported Times of India.
“But, we want to carry out the pre-Games testing. We will test, at least, three-four times all those athletes who stand a fair chance to qualify for the Olympics. These athletes will include those who are part of the Target Olympic Podium scheme, Nada’s registered testing pool and those with biological passports,” he added.
The concept of ‘target testing’ has also been explained by NADA, who has been using it to great effect as numerous doping cases have been found of late at all age-group levels.
“The percentage or rate of detection has improved because of this selective testing procedure. It’s heartening to inform that Nada caught the maximum number of dope cheats during the financial year April 2018 to March 2019, which is 187. It’s an all-time high figure.
“We can now plan the sample collection in a better way as to when and where an athlete has to be tested or what are his/her likelihood of taking substances during a particular trial or championship. Earlier, we used to go for random sampling, which was like mass sample collection. It also has had its impact when the number of doping incidents came down,” he added.