Decks have been cleared for athlete Sunita Rani to win back her Asian games medals with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) dismissing the Buzan dope test that had stripped her of gold and bronze medals in the 1500 m and 5000 m events respectively.Observers point out that this will be the first time in the history of the games that medals are being returned to an athlete after facing doping charges.Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) secretary general Randhir Singh said on Tuesday that the IOC has confirmed the Indian athlete’s acquittal of the dope charges through an official letter.Singh said that the IOC has recommended to the Asian body to drop the case against since there were discrepancies in the testing procedures at the Seoul laboratory. The OCA secretay general told The Indian Express that the medals will be hopefully returned to Sunita in the next couple of days. ‘‘It is in the last stage and the IOC has recommnded no action be taken against Sunita,’’ he said.Sunita was not available for comments since, according to her family, she was travelling from Mumbai. Sunita’s brother Shinder Pal, however, said the family was very relieved after the news. ‘‘But we are yet to recieve any official confirmation. We are still worried if the medals will be returned or not to Sunita,’’ said her brother.Since the IOC has already cleared Sunita of the charges, there is unlikely to be any hitches from the OCA in returning the medals to Sunita as the testing laboratory is accreditated by the IOC. A five-man OCA task force will now look into the IOC recommendations and the members, including Randhir Singh, havebeen asked to submit their views.‘‘The OCA is a sports-minded body and will act so. I have already sent my views but since tomorrow is Christmas the final decisison will be known in a day or two,’’ Singh said. Sunita’s medals that were taken back by the Asian Games organisers after the dope tests came out, are at the moment lying in Kuwait.
