POA recommends two-year ban on Games bound athletes

Md Shah and female 100 metres runner, Noshee Parveen tested positive for taking performance enhancement drugs.

Pakistan’s preparations for next month’s Beijing Olympics suffered a serious setback after the nation’s Olympic association on Friday recommended a two-year ban on two track and field athletes for failing to pass a dope test.

Two athletes, Mohammad Shah and female 100 metres runner, Noshee Parveen tested positive for taking performance enhancement drugs when the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) carried out dope tests on six athletes short listed for the quadrennial event.

“We were to pick two out of the six athletes for the games, but unfortunately Shah and Parveen tested positive,” Colonel Muhammad Yahya who headed POA’s inquiry committee said.

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The POA and the Pakistan Athletics Federation (PAF) have made dope tests compulsory after the nation had to face an embarrassing situation in the Asian Indoor Championships in Qatar in February when hurdler Mohammad Sajjad tested positive for drugs.

The POA later suspended Sajjad, who became the first Pakistani athlete to receive a drug ban, for two years from international and domestic competitions.

However, there is still some hope for the two athletes as the decision now rests on PAF, which would take a call on whether to ban them from national or international events or both.

Pakistan has been given two wild card entries for the athletics competition in Beijing as none of their athletes qualified directly for the event.