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Why should we go through this charade?

By K.P. Mohan

NEW DELHI AUG. 24. Ms. Uma Bharti has ordered an enquiry into the doping scandal involving two Indian weightlifters at the Manchester Commonwealth Games.

Such doping cases harm national prestige, says the Union Sports Minister. She has ordered that the enquiry report be placed before her within a week.

So, what is new? You might well ask.

Doping is nothing new in Indian sport. Nor is an enquiry into dope-related issues.

Ms. Uma Bharti had ordered an enquiry last year into the case of banned drugs popping out of sportspersons' suitcases at the National Institute of Sports, Patiala. The one-man Kingra committee report is there with the minister. The public has a right to know what she had learnt from that report.

Not to be left behind, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) had also announced the appointment of a one-man commission to probe the doping scandal that rocked the country last year following an affidavit submitted in the Delhi High Court in the Sunita Godara petition, confirming that there had been 257 positive dope cases tested at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) lab here since 1991. Nothing has been heard of that commission or its report ever since.

During the interregnum, more drugs had reportedly been confiscated at the NIS, Patiala, from the living quarters of the sportspersons.

Now, a World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) representative has come and collected urine samples from weightlifters at Patiala. WADA had indicated prior to the Commonwealth Games that it was coming in to test the lifters. Thus the recent testing is not to be considered as an off-shoot of the Manchester positives.

The question the past four years or so had always been not about doping in Indian sport but whether the Indians would get away with it at the international level. The news that Krishnan Madaswamy and Satheesha Rai had tested positive at Manchester was thus not shocking.

It was always on the cards that some Indian sportspersons would get caught at some meet or the other. More might follow in the months to come. National prestige will take further beating. "Everyone takes dope at the international level, why not our sportsmen'' That has always been the argument among sports administrators in this country. Wittingly or unwittingly, the SAI and the Union Sports Ministry have accepted that argument.

Otherwise, you cannot explain the testing done at the SAI lab here or the explanations, quite often trotted out by the IOA and federation officials, "they were tested and cleared by the SAI lab.'' That meant there was a monitoring machinery in place in order to help sportspersons get cleared of the traces of drugs he or she might have been taking.

Hopefully, the enquiry committee will not try to put the blame on those who tested the urine samples of Madaswamy and Rai at the SAI lab. There are two differing versions in circulation on the topic, one which suggests that Madaswamy had indeed tested positive at the SAI lab and another which talks about the paucity of a re-agent required to complete the testing for steroids at that time.

(At Manchester, Madaswamy tested positive for a nandrolene derivative while Rai was positive for a stimulant, strychnine. Madaswamy is in line for a two-year suspension while Rai could be out for six months. In case there is to be a third positive among Indian lifters in this calendar year in any competition, a 50,000-dollar fine will be imposed by the International Federation (IWF) and if the fine is not paid then the country will be suspended for a year from all internationals.)

A scapegoat had already been found in Mr. Mani Lal, a scientific officer at the SAI South Centre, Bangalore, who had accompanied the weightlifting team to Manchester as a coach. Mr. Lal, who happens to be a qualified weightlifting coach as well, is under suspension at the moment.

The Sports Minister has formed an enquiry committee that has a preponderance of the SAI-Ministry-NIS officialdom. If transparency has to be achieved, it would be logical to have a representative each of the Medical Council and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

It would, in fact, be ideal to exclude the SAI altogether from the panel, except in an advisory role, since the SAI in the first place has been responsible for the training of the sportspersons and is also in charge of the dope-control lab.

Such a panel should be allowed to question experts, including those who might be in charge of giving food supplements to sportspersons, not necessarily with the tag of a `doctor', brought in from abroad, mainly from the Central Asian Republics, apart from coaches, scientific officers and officials connected with the sport.

One last thought to rebut those who always shrug their shoulders and lament the fact that our lab is not an International Olympic Committee (IOC)-accredited one and as such our hands are tied in contemplating action against those who return positive tests.

Country's prestige at stake

Nothing prevents the Government from spending, say Rs. 20 lakh a year, and carrying out a dope-control programme with nearly 100 tests in approved labs abroad. If we can give Rs. 20 lakh for every gold medal won at a Commonwealth Games, we surely can spend that much to test 100 samples every year. After all, the country's prestige is at stake.

If that is not possible, shut down the SAI lab here. For, then there will be no monitoring system in place. That will mean, the sportspersons will be at the mercy of testing agencies at all major international championships including Olympics, Asian Games and Commonwealth Games.

Any takers?

* * *

... And the Khel Ratna award goes to Abhinav

NEW DELHI Aug. 24. Ace shooter Abhinav Bindra has been selected for the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award for 2001, the country's highest recognition in sports, official sources said on Saturday.

Three people — Ashok Diwan (hockey), Shahu Birojder (boxing) and Ms Aparna Ghosh (basketball) — have been selected for the Dhyan Chand Award for Lifetime Achievement.

The awardees were picked by a selection committee, headed by Kapil Dev, and will be distributed by the President Abdul Kalam at a ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on August 29 during which the Dronacharya and Arjuna Awards would also be given. — UNI

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