‘Legislated anti-doping measures yet to be implemented’

Navin Agarwal was the Director General of the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) from 2016 to 2021. During his tenure, the now-retired IPS officer had introduced the Athletes’ Biological Passport (ABP) as one of the measures to tackle the doping menace. In conversation with DH’s Hita Prakash, Agarwal speaks about the status of Indian sports.

Excerpts:  

What is your take on India being number one dope offender for the second year in a row?

It is very shameful that there is rampant doping here. If you see age-wise segregation of doping incidents, you will find that it is mostly the younger ones, below 21 years of age, who are most involved.

Should there be better measures to check the menace?

A few years back, the government passed anti-doping legislation. But unfortunately, the measures have yet to be implemented. The sooner the government implements those measures, the better it will be, particularly when we are aspiring to hold the Olympics in 2036. For that, we have to come clean. Urgent measures are required from the government to control doping. One of the measures was also to establish a Doping Control Board. But it has not yet been done. 

What about NADA's expansion?

More dope control officials who go to the field and conduct the tests have been recruited over the past few years. And a proper systematic technique to identify the potential dopers is in place. For instance, previously, we would pick up five out of 100 athletes for random tests, and none of them were found to be doping.

But now, if there are 100 athletes in a particular situation, through various techniques and scientific methods, we can more or less find out who among these 100 athletes is likely to dope. So out of 100, we can identify 10 people who are likely to dope, and we test them. In those 10, maybe we are able to catch two or three who have doped.

The National Dope Testing Laboratory is the only one in the country responsible for human sports dope testing. Do you think India needs more such centres?

NADA wanted more dope control laboratories in other parts of the country so that the time taken, particularly for blood samples, could be reduced. Blood samples need less turnaround time. Yes, it certainly would be desirable to increase the number of tests. 

How did cricket come under the ambit of NADA?

In 2028, cricket will be played in Los Angeles at the Olympics. For that, the sport needed to abide by the regulations of the Olympic charter. So, we insisted that cricket was brought under the ambit of NADA, and they came on board in August 2019. Maybe the BCCI does not need any government aid, but it is also a national sports federation. NADA's charter is to control doping in all sports. So we have been testing cricketers as well. 

What is your message to keep sports clean? 

Particularly for the coaches, I would say that they should not be too misled about their own success. Some of the coaches have been involved in misguiding their athletes to dope. Such coaches should be debarred by the various associations and federations. 

And to the parents, winning in sport is not the ultimate glory. Do not give wrong moral lessons about cheating. They should let the natural abilities of the child come into play rather than forcing performance upon their children.