The Hindu : Sport : WADA welcomes formation of NADA

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Sunday, Oct 07, 2007
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Sport - Sports : General

WADA welcomes formation of NADA

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) on Saturday praised the ‘giant steps’ taken by India in the last few months in its anti-doping campaign through the formation of the National Anti Doping Agency (NADA) and noted with satisfaction that the dope control laboratory here had reached its last stages of accreditation procedure.

WADA Director General David Howman expressed the hope that the laboratory would be fully accredited by next year. Referring to litigations involving sportspersons who had tested positive in recent months, Mr. Howman also felt that the newly-formed NADA and the Indian sports bodies could eventually lead towards accepting the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS), Lausanne, as the appellate body in such instances.

Motion initiated

The NADA which was registered in November, 2005, has set in motion the process by which it could become functional as soon as possible. The governing body of the agency is headed by Union Sports Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar and its Director General ‘for the moment’ is the Joint Secretary (international division) in the Sports Ministry, Rahul Bhatnagar.

Mr. Howman and a team of three other WADA officials are here for a two-day symposium on anti-doping in sports organised by the ministry and Sports Authority of India (SAI) in collaboration with WADA.

Speaking at the symposium, Mr. Howman and Deputy Director, WADA (Doping Control Policy) Rob Koehler provided an overview of WADA’s roles and responsibilities as a monitoring agency and explained in detail the rules regarding ‘athletes’ whereabouts’ and therapeutic use exemption (TUE) process.

IOA’s role

Addressing a press conference later, Mr. Howman said that WADA was happy with the role played by the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) in the anti-doping domain so far. When queried about the lack of Code compliance on the part of the IOA, Mr. Howman pointed out that compliance by all agencies was being reviewed and would be taken up for discussion next year.

Obviously reluctant to strike any discordant note, Mr. Howman also would not go into the aspect of a large number of ‘positives’ coming out of the country, but disclosed that WADA was fully aware of the positive results being reported by the Delhi lab.

Touching upon the ‘fiasco’ of a doping case that it turned out to be against Pakistani cricketers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif, Mr. Howman said that both ICC and PCB had since amended their rules to fall in line with the Code. Compliance was a different matter, however, he added.

Dr Manmohan Singh, Chairman, Medical and Anti Doping Commission, IOA, made a presentation regarding IOA’s testing at major games including the last three National Games and gave details about the plans for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. For the first time, there would be testing in the Commonwealth Youth Games, the next edition being held in Pune in 2008.

Complaints

The Executive Director (Academics), SAI, at the National Institute of Sports (NIS), Patiala, L.S. Ranawat, complained about WADA testing teams landing up in the middle of the night and on holidays at the NIS to test athletes and felt that the institute earned ‘negative publicity’ when athletes were reported to have ‘run away’ from testers when actually they had only gone home in nearby centres at weekends.

At least 17 athletes had gone missing from NIS in February last year when a testing team reached Patiala. The batch included athletes from around the country, not just from Punjab, and they were missing for weeks prompting the federation to institute an enquiry.

The Secretary of the Indian Weightlifting Federation, Balbir Singh Bhatia, also had a similar complaint about his body being penalised by the international federation when a few lifters in the Bangalore camp had gone visiting ailing family members.

Both Mr. Ranawat and Mr. Bhatia were told by Mr. Howman that WADA hardly conducted any dope tests on its own and they could take up the issue with the concerned international federations.

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