Drugs cloud over golden lining

It was, you could say, too good to last, and now the cynics have their turn. India’s medal-winning run at Busan ended under a cloud tod...

It was, you could say, too good to last, and now the cynics have their turn. India’s medal-winning run at Busan ended under a cloud today after middle-distance runner Sunita Rani was found to have tested positive for banned substances. The athlete has denied any wrongdoing, saying that she’d only taken Liv-52.

Sunita, who won a gold in the 1,500m and a bronze in the 5,000m, will be stripped of her medals if the second test, which the Indian delegation has requested, also tests positive. The result will be known on October 25.

The development follows the belief among many in the Indian media here that consumption of banned substances is still rampant among athletes here, including those from India. Indian athletics has a history of drug offences, the most recent being weightlifters K Madasamy and Satheesh Rai testing positive at the Commonwealth Games.

Story continues below this ad

This tournament has also seen extremely lax drug-control procedures. This much was admitted to by International Olympic Committee president and anti-drugs campaigner Jacques Rogge, who arrived here today. The Games Organising Committee should, he said, have coordinated with the Olympic Council of Asia and the IOC’s World Anti-Doping Agency. The IOC will ensure that WADA runs the dope control lab in future Asian Games, he’s believed to have told officials. Indeed, dope inspectors — who escort athletes to the testing lab — often had no clue to the procedure they were supposed to follow. They would often allow athletes to go to the toilet alone, someimes even with their team doctors.

In the intervening period, an athlete was free to consume masking agents to counter the effects of a particular performance-enhancing drug that he or she may have taken.

Dr Christopher Vincent, who has worked with sprinter Maurice Green and is currently part of the Saudi Arabian contingent, said this was the worst dope control lab he’d seen ‘‘anywhere in the world’’.

The chef-de-mission of the Indian contingent, Jagdish Tytler said he first heard of the case last night, when the medical commission of the Games Organising Committee requested the Indian camp to appear with Sunita as her sample had contained a banned substance. Tytler, Sunita, her coach Renu Kohli and other officials went. ‘‘Sunita said that she’d been taking only Liv-52 and nothing else’’.

Story continues below this ad

The B sample will be flown for re-testing at an IOC-accredited lab in Seoul. ‘‘We have asked the Indian team doctor, Jawahar Lal Jain, to go to Seoul while they re-test the sample.’’

Sunita was not available for comments; she’d been asked to lie low. Other athletes, too, were reportedly told not to open their mouth. As the news broke, officials went underground, into denial or simply kept mum. Amateur Athletics Athletics Federation of India secretary- general Lalit Bhanot insisted that ‘‘our athletes are clean’’.

Randhir Singh, secretary-general of the Olympic Council of Asia and the Indian Olympic Association, also refused to speak.