Shot putter Manpreet banned for 4 years

Asian champion shot putter Manpreet Kaur has been banned for four years by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) for flunking four dope tests in 2017.

The period of suspension would begin from July 20, 2017, the date of her provisional suspension, according to an order of the anti-doping disciplinary panel (ADDP) of the NADA dated March 29.

"Yes, Manpreet Kaur has been suspended for four years," NADA Director General Navin Agarwal said.

She has the option of filing an appeal before the Anti-Doping Appeal Panel.

Manpreet is set to lose the gold she won in the 2017 Asian Championships in Bhubaneswar as well as her national record as the panel ruled that all her competitive results from the date of sample collection would be disqualified.

Manpreet tested positive four times in 2017. The first was at the Asian Grand Prix at Jinhua, China on April 24, followed by Federation Cup in Patiala (June 1), Asian Athletics Championships in Bhubaneswar (July 6) and the Inter-State Championships in Guntur (July 16). She won gold in all these meets.

She had set the national record of 18.86m at Jinhua.

She tested positive for steroid methenolone at the Jinhua Asian GP meet. In the other three meets in India, she tested positive for the stimulant dimethylbutylamine, a substance that has an almost similar structure as the more famous methylhexaneamine (MHA).

Spike positive cases

The number of dope positive cases out of the samples tested at the National Dope Testing Laboratory has seen a spike with 57 returning positive in the first two months of this year, according to data released on Tuesday.

The NDTL statistics showed 3.6 per cent dope positive cases out of 1599 samples tested till February, which means 57 Adverse Analytical Findings (AAF) already this year.

The NDTL had reported 1.8 per cent AAFs out of the 7307 samples it tested in 2018.

The data showed that 452 international testings were done till February this year but did not provide the number dope positive cases regarding Indian and foreign athletes separately.

"Since 1599 is a mix of samples of both Indian and foreign athletes, it cannot be said how many AAFs are of Indian athletes," NADA Director General Navin Agarwal told PTI.