The Hindu : Shailaja wants `B' sample tested abroad

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 01, 2003

Sport

Sport - Sports : General

Shailaja wants `B' sample tested abroad

NEW DELHI APRIL 30. Shailaja Pujari, the Andhra lifter who tested positive at the Junior National weightlifting championship in Chennai last January, has sought the `B' sample test at a laboratory abroad. The `A' sample was tested at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) lab here.

Shailaja tested positive for the steroid, metandienone, at the Chennai Junior National and later dropped out of the camp for the Commonwealth championship in Tonga. She was a sensation at Chennai and Hyderabad National Games, bettering a string of National records at both competitions.

She has now expressed shock at being tested positive and claimed that she had not consumed any banned substance and had not tested positive any time in the past, a claim that could be disputed. Details of her previous tests are not known but it will be pertinent to mention here that a second steroid offence attracts a life-ban.

Shailaja has asked the federation's ad hoc body that looks after the sport's interests these days, that her `B' sample be opened only in her or her representative's presence (as stipulated in the rules) and has also agreed to bear the expenditure for the tests abroad. She has sought a list of international laboratories as well as the copies of the analytical reports from the SAI lab.

Shailaja's was one of the 22 positives that turned up at the last Junior National meet. — Our Special Correspondent

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