Narsingh ban, shame on NADA

Mismanagement isn’t new to Indian sports and Narsingh Yadav’s four-year ban after a hearing by the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) just a day before the wrestler was to take the mat for his first bout at the Rio Games was a ‘shining’ example of the myopic vision of the administrators of games’ bodies in the country. The CAS verdict not only left the nation red-faced but also raised questions over the manner in which the grappler was allowed to travel despite the hard evidence of the presence of a banned substance inside his body and hardly any proof of the sabotage that he professed.

Whether what Narsingh claimed is true or not will be known only after an impartial probe by the investigating authorities but to clear him of any wrongdoing even before it could be conclusively established that vested interests had spiked his drink at the SAI Centre in Sonepat to scuttle his Olympic chances, and expect no resistance from world’s doping watchdogs was always going to be a huge gamble. That the National Anti-doping Agency (NADA) panel gave him a clean chit despite its own lawyers debunking Narsingh and Wrestling Federation of India’s (WFI) conspiracy theories was puzzling to say the least. The world wrestling body too may have given its approval for Narsingh’s participation in Rio, but discounting World Anti-doping Agency’s (WADA) objection was being naïve on part of WFI.

WADA had even criticised the International Olympic Committee for not slapping a blanket ban on Russian athletes for the state-sponsored doping programme carried out in that country and it was not going to go soft on Narsingh. The CAS agreed to hold a hearing on WADA’s appeal and following arguments and counters, ordered the Mumbai wrestler to leave the Games’ village besides handing him a potentially career-ending ban. The CAS ad hoc panel categorically stated that Narsingh’s results were not the outcome of a one-time ingestion and could have come from only an oral consumption of one or two tablets. The judgment took into account the concentration of the substance found in his blood to arrive at the conclusion and also ruled out the possibility of a drink being spiked with the substance. There is, however, still hope of the ban being revoked if the sabotage – for which a criminal case has been filed against a sparring partner of another wrestler Jithesh at the training centre – is proved in an Indian court of law but there is no doubt that the whole incident not only left a bitter taste in the mouth, but also robbed India of a chance to field another athlete in Narsingh’s place.