The Hindu : Sport / Generalia : Doping: the Indian dimension

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Monday, Jun 28, 2004

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Sport - Generalia

Doping: the Indian dimension

By K. P. Mohan

NEW DELHI, JUNE 27. The National athletics camp has had a `doping chart', prepared apparently by a foreign expert; drugs have been confiscated from the athletes, including juniors, at the Bangalore Centre of the Sports Authority of India (SAI) in recent weeks.

Exactly a year ago, again at the Bangalore SAI Centre, drugs were recovered from the room of a leading woman middle distance runner who had previously been involved in a doping controversy. No action was taken and the news has been kept under wraps.

Many athletes who have been in the National camps have suffered jaundice the past two to three years. Jaundice is one of the manifestations of steroid abuse.

There is no word yet, however, from the Union Sports Ministry that it has a grip on the situation; an understanding of the widespread doping that goes on in Indian sports, especially every Olympic year, when records tumble and world-class performances are turned in by rote.

"We have taken the report seriously,'' said a ministry spokesman the other day when the story broke in a national daily about the existence of a `doping chart'. Only a day earlier, without the benefit of the report or the `doping chart', the ministry had sought dope tests on all the athletes who underwent a 42-day training stint in Ukraine recently. But then, there is no confirmation as to whether all the athletes were subjected to the dope tests or not.

Since the Busan Asian Games, where athlete Sunita Rani tested positive, to be eventually reprieved on technical and procedural grounds, the doping malaise has spread deep and wide, among juniors and seniors, among athletes and weightlifters, among boxers and swimmers and among footballers and cyclists.

The Indian Olympic Association (IOA), the apex body controlling Olympic sport, has maintained its ostrich-like stance. A typical bureaucratic approach has stymied the ministry and the Sports Authority of India (SAI) in their avowed anti-doping measures. They expect someone to actually drop clinching evidence in their laps as though the mounting evidence that is in their possession is inadequate.

The revelation, in a national daily, that foreign experts associated with the athletics team could be behind the `doping chart' that lists a concoction of steroids, supplements and vitamins only confirms the long-held belief in many quarters that, wittingly or unwittingly, taxpayers' money is being utilised to `poison' budding sportsmen and women and established stars.

For those who have followed the fortunes of Indian athletics in recent years, there is no novelty in the phenomenal record-breaking performances churned out by the athletes in this Olympic year. It had happened in 2000, but Sydney turned out to be a disaster for our athletes, barring the exception of K. M. Beenamol. Not many are prepared to believe that Indian athletes would be able to repeat their performances this season at the Athens Olympics.

The doubts are not just based on past performance but on the suspicion that the extraordinary feats, especially by some of the women quarter-milers at the Chennai circuit meet, were mainly on the strength of performance-enhancing drugs that have been doing the rounds at the NIS, Patiala, as well as at the SAI Centre, Bangalore, the past few years.

The chart

Let us first look at what the 2004 `doping chart' says.

A `white tablet', possibly a steroid, was prescribed daily for the entire duration of January this year. The dosage must have continued.

Capsule Nuvir, another steroid, was prescribed for at least 14 days in January. That also must have continued. Neurobol, also a steroid, is another drug that was prescribed, from January 23 to 30.

There are, of course, Neurobione injections, Eldervit injections and vitamin B and vitamin C capsules and tablets prescribed for general health and pain relief among other things plus supplements.

The 2004 chart looks just a prescription compared to an old chart, possibly that from 2003 or 2002. The old chart looks a wholesale dealer's indent to a major supplier.

Just sample this:

Winstrol, Menabol, Neurobol or White tablet; Riboxini injection (Ukraine origin), Carnitor, Ginseng, Biostar, Vit. C, Vit. E, Proteine, Creatine, Ciplal M, Fefol Z, Astimin-3 injection, Chromium Picolonate, Biosoft, Raricap, Inosin and Astimin forte.

Nuvir is testosterone undecanoate. The drug is also marketed abroad as Andriol. It is available in the Indian market, at Rs. 307 for 30 capsules.

Winstrol, Menabol and Neurobol (capsules) are stanozolol, the drug which gained notoriety at the Seoul Olympics in 1988, thanks to the disgraced Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson (Neurobol, in injection form, is nandrolone).

Nuvir, Winstrol, Menabol and Neurobol are steroids and are banned by all the international bodies concerned. A positive test for steroid or its possession can attract a two-year suspension; its trafficking can attract a life-ban.

Why should suspicion fall on the foreign expert or experts, including coaches, in the `doping chart' scandal?

There are sufficient grounds to believe that the foreign experts or experts, including coaches, could be behind the `doping chart'.

Post-Busan Asian Games 2002, middle distance runner Sunita Rani, faced with a doping charge and enquiry, told a high-ranking IOA official that the `Russian doctor' gave her an injection just a couple of hours before her race in Busan.

A leading heptathlete was `caught' with an injection vial in the Nehru Stadium corridors in the year 2002. She wanted someone to administer her that injection. When questioned, the athlete admitted that it was given to her by the `Russian doctor'. She had no clue what it contained; its label was in Russian.

Actually, there is no doctor from Russia. The recovery expert, Volodymyr Potrebenko, is from Ukraine, just as his predecessor, Dr. Yuriy Boyko was. `Russian doctor' was only a convenient way the athletes and coaches used to identify the foreign `expert'.

(To be continued)

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