The Hindu : Sunita tests positive a second time

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 16, 2002

Sport

Sport - Asian Games

Sunita tests positive a second time

BUSAN OCT. 15. Sunita Rani has tested positive for another sample taken during these Asian Games.

Unless something dramatic happens in the panel meetings of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) or fresh evidence is turned in to explain the presence of a banned steroid in her urine, she looks likely to lose her gold and bronze medals and might face a two-year ban.

The second positive, for the same steroid nandrolone, that was detected in her urine sample after her 1500m victory, has come in her sample collected after her bronze in the 5000 metres. This one, it was explained by Indian officials, had less concentration of the banned substance.

The OCA Medical Commission called the Indian side again on Monday afternoon, some five hours before the closing ceremony began, to be told that another sample had returned a positive result.

The Chef de mission of the Indian contingent, along with Sunita, her coach, Renu Kohli and the team doctor, Dr. Jawahar Jain, made the trip to the OCA Headquarters Hotel to explain her case.

Sunita maintained that she had not taken any banned substance. There was some suggestion from the Indian side that the samples might have been contaminated. Two different samples, taken on two different days (not to be confused with the `A' and `B' samples which are taken at the same time on the same day) getting contaminated might sound a little too far-fetched.

But then, Sunita, by all accounts and going by all regulations and procedures will have to hope that some technical hitch or a `contamination' theory might stick in order for her to get out of the plight that she is in at the moment. She blamed the media for projecting a wrong picture back home even before she had been pronounced guilty by the OCA.

Needless to say, her positive dope tests, two of them now, have left a cloud of suspicion over the entire Indian performance in athletics. Whether she gets a reprieve or not, she as well as India will be watched and monitored more closely from now on.

Our Special Correspondent

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