MR Poovamma to miss Asian Games and World Championships after getting suspended for doping
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The national Anti-Doping Appeal Panel (ADAP) has sentenced Indian quarter-miler MR Poovamma to a two-year penalty for failing a drug test in February 2021. Her three-month penalty by a National Anti-Doping Agency disciplinary panel was reinstated by the ADAP (NADA).
For over a decade, MR Poovamma had been a crucial member of the women's 4x400m relay team, which had helped the nation earn gold medals at the Asian Games in 2014 and 2018. At the Asian Championships, the quarter-miler also won several team and individual medals, which included another gold from 2013 in the women's 4x400.
At the Indian Grand Prix 1 in Patiala on February 18 of last year, MR Poovamma, a 400-meter specialist from Karnataka, tested positive for methylhexaneamine, a stimulant that is forbidden by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). In 2009, methylhexaneamine was added to WADA's list of substances that must not be used.
On June 16, the Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel punished Poovamma for three months; however, NADA appealed, and as a result, ADAP gave her a two-year suspension. As a result of the penalty, MR Poovamma will be absent from the Asian Games, the global athletics championships, and the Asian championships in 2019.
All of MR Poovamma's results obtained since the testing period will be thrown out, and she will lose all of the awards and honours she has received during that time.
MR Poovamma had won gold medals in the Indian Grand Prix 2 and 3 as well as the Federation Cup the year before to the day of her sample collection. She also took home silvers in rounds one and two of the Indian Grand Prix this year, and in April, she earned another silver at the Federation Cup. Since February 18, 2021, all of her results have become invalid.
