JOIN USThe steps announced by sports minister Ajay Maken on Tuesday to curb the menace of doping has not come a day too soon. For long, people associated with sport in the country have been crying out for measures to check drug-taking by athletes that was evident mainly because of the wildly swinging performance graphs on field.
Lack of proof allowed the cheats to get away time and again, but things should move in a different direction now after eight athletes fell into the dope net, spread either by the international body or by the National Anti-Doping Agency, in the last ten days.
The list includes some of the top athletes – who walked away with laurels on two big stages last year – the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games. The Indian women’s relay team’s triumph in front of a capacity crowd at the Nehru stadium in New Delhi was one of the high points of Indian sport last year.
The four-member squad of AC Ashwini, Mandeep Kaur, Sini Jose and Manjeet Kaur was the toast of the nation then, and a month later, they repeated their heroics at the Asian Games in Guangzhou to bring home another gold medal.
That three of those golden girls are among the eight positive cases puts a huge question mark over their glorious run last season and raises serious doubts about the methods being adopted at national camps. Often in the past, the media has highlighted the role of experts and coaches from abroad, mainly East European nations, in the unbelievable highs achieved by our athletes in short spans of time.
The current episode has exposed the ‘expertise’ of these personnel and hopefully, the government probe will throw more light on the murky happenings behind the scenes and punishment to the guilty.
Viewed from a larger perspective, India’s doping shame does not end with the list of eight that is under scrutiny now. At many national championships, including junior meets, stories keep tumbling out about syringes and vials in toilets, showing how deep-rooted the malady is. Despite being aware of the harmful effects of doping, even junior athletes are not averse to popping a pill or taking an injection for a quicker trip to glory.
The NADA has only scratched the surface with its latest findings and it will be a while before the guilty are brought to book, but a start has been made towards cleaning the Indian sport.