The Hindu : Sport / Athletics : WADA team at Patiala again

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Wednesday, Mar 29, 2006

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Sport - Athletics

WADA team at Patiala again

Sports Reporter

NEW DELHI: For the fourth time in less than two months, a team from the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) is at the NIS, Patiala. It reached there on Monday and is learnt to have collected urine samples of an unspecified number of athletes. It also enquired the whereabouts of a few other athletes.

The team had earlier been to the Nehru Stadium here, but it was not immediately known whether it had collected any sample.

Those athletes whose samples were collected at Patiala included Kuldev Singh and P.S. Sreejith (400m), Amritpal Singh and Mahan Singh (long jump), Navpreet Singh and Kuldeep Singh (shot put) and Sagardeep Kaur (women's 400m). All the male athletes, it may be recalled, were mentioned in the list of athletes WADA was in search of when it made its first unannounced visit to Patiala last month.

The top athletes of the country were on their way back from Melbourne when the two-member WADA team visited the NIS on Monday. On February 3, when a similar mission was gone through, WADA had failed to get any athlete to be tested.

There is no word yet from either WADA or the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) about any action with regard to the sudden departure of the Indian team from Potchefstroom, South Africa, or the "disappearance" of some athletes when WADA tried to track them down at the NIS, Patiala.

However, the fall-out seems to be that the IAAF has sought `whereabouts information' for more number of athletes than normal from the Athletics Federation of India (AFI). The IAAF, in turn, would be able to pass on such information to WADA. Normally the top-ranked athletes of the world, numbering around 30, are automatically included in the `whereabouts' list by the IAAF.

A `missed test' can be recorded if an athlete is not available at the address given in the `whereabouts information'. Three `missed tests' will constitute a doping violation that can attract a two-year suspension.

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