New Delhi:The National Anti Doping Agency is looking to crack down on coaches and support personnel who abet doping but often get away without any punishment, HT has learned.
At the National Federation Senior Athletics Championship in Kochi on Monday, NADA dope testers asked every athlete to write the names of their coaches and doctors/physio on the doping control form before collecting samples.
The development comes in the wake of chief junior coach Ramesh Nagpuri being suspended by NADA on Saturday for ‘complicity’ — he allegedly helped two athletes evade dope tests in SAI centre Hyderabad.
Two more coaches — Karamveer Singh (judo/athletics) and Rakesh (athletics) were also suspended by NADA for ‘complicity’ and ‘administration of prohibited substance’. It is the first time that NADA is coming down hard on coaches in a big way. Dronacharya awardee Ramesh is known as Dutee Chand’s coach and several promising juniors.
There was an instance in the past when in 2022, Mumbai coach Mickey Menezes was punished and banned for ‘complicity’ when his trainee failed a dope test. But that remained a one-off.
It has been learnt that at a recent meeting of stakeholders, former athletes have told top NADA officials that they need to hold coaches accountable and sanction them if they are found guilty. The Athletics Federation of India last year wanted athletes to name their coaches before competitions.
While athletes are asked to provide their doctor and coach’s name, they can also choose to tick ‘none,’ ‘unknown’ — in case he is not aware of their names’ or ‘declined’ while filling the same collection forms.
The World Anti Doping Agency has the provision to ban coaches (Article 2.9) for ‘assisting, encouraging, aiding, abetting, conspiring, covering up or any other type of intentional complicity or attempted complicity involving an anti-doping rule violation.”
Federation Cup
On the first day of the competition, javelin thrower Sachin Yadav won gold medal with a winning throw of 83.86m. Sachin has been in impressive form this season and his attempts (78.04, 80.22m, 75.97, 79.69m, 83.67m) were testimony to that.
The top seven throwers were able to achieve the Asian Championships qualification mark of 75.36m. Sachin, however, failed short of achieving the World Championships qualifying mark of 85.50. Yashvir Singh came second (80.85m) and Sahil Silwal (77.84m) third.
In men’s 100m, Punjab’s Gurindervir Singh strangely failed to make an impact. The Reliance athlete who broke the national record this season, finished last in the final on Monday.
Pranav Pramod Gurav of Railways emerged the surprise winner with a timing of 10.27 seconds, beating established names like Animesh Kujur (10.32 seconds) and Manikanta Hoblidhar (10.35 seconds). No sprinter managed to breach the Asian qualifying time of 10.25 seconds.
Gurav, who was travelling to the venue without a coach, celebrated his moment. His previous best was 10.54sec which came last year.
“I was not expecting to win gold here because the field was strong. It is a hard work of years. My grandfather who has supported me all through is unwell and admitted in ICU. I want to dedicate this medal to him,” said Gurav.
In the morning session, Army’s distance runner Sawan Barwal’s improved his meet record in men’s 10,000m and also qualified for Asian Athletics Championships in Gumi, South Korea. Barwal clocked 28:57.13. He also won gold at the National Games this season. His performance was better than the previous meet record of 28:57.90 set in 2007 by Surendra Singh. The AFI (Athletics Federation of India) qualification time in the men’s 10,000m was 29:33.26.
