Indian sprinter Nirmala Sheoran gets four-year ban for failing dope test

10/10/2019

Nirmala Sheoran has been stripped of her two Asian Championships gold medals and was banned for four years by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) which manages track and field doping cases. She was tested positive for the steroids drostanolone and metenolone at a competition back home in June 2018.

One of India’s top 400m runner Nirmala Sheoran has been stripped of her two Asian Championships gold medals and banned for four years by the Monaco based Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), which manages track and field doping cases.

Sheoran's ban and disqualification of results mean India will lose the 400m gold and also the 4x400m gold which she won in the 2017 Asian Championships in Bhubaneswar. India had won 12 gold medals to top the medals tally with 29 medals (12-5-12) overall, followed by China's 20 medals (8-7-5). In both, the women's 400m and 4x400m, Vietnam had bagged the silver. Sheoran was also a member of the Indian contingent at the Rio Olympics and last year's Jakarta Asian Games.

Explaining its decision to annul all the results, the AIU said: "On January 31, 2019, the IAAF's Athlete Passport Management Unit informed the AIU that an Adverse Passport Finding (APF) was declared against the athlete as the expert panel had concluded unanimously that it was highly likely that a prohibited substance or prohibited method had been used," reported TNN.

The AIU made it clear it is highly unlikely that the (variations) in the biological passport between Aug 7, 2013, and Aug 2, 2017, was the result of any other cause other than doping and came out with the order to ban Sheoran on October 7 for testing positive for the steroids drostanolone and metenolone at a competition back home in June 2018. Both the drugs are under the category of Prohibited Substances according to the WADA 2018 Prohibited List. She admitted the violation in late November last year.

"She has been banned for four years from 29th June 2018, the date of the sample collection. So, she has not been banned from the date of the order but from the date of sample collection," an official told ANI.

"Normally, the ban starts from the date of the order and it is seen that whether the athlete was provisionally suspended or not. If the athlete is provisionally suspended then they take four years from the date of the provisional suspension," the official added.

The period of her ban starts on June 28, 2018 with her results from August 2016 to November 2018 being disqualified.