The Hindu : Sport / Weightlifting : Anita, Satish Rai to be given hearing

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 28, 2007
ePaper

Sport

Sport - Weightlifting

Anita, Satish Rai to be given hearing

Special Correspondent

Rai tested positive for steroid stanozolol
Strychnine was a banned substance in 2002

NEW DELHI: Weightlifters Satish Rai and Anita Kumari, facing anti-doping rule violation charges, will be given an opportunity to place their explanations before a hearing panel to be set up by the Indian Weightlifting Federation President, Harbhajan Singh.

“The panel will be set up soon,” said the federation Secretary, Balbir Singh Bhatia, on Thursday. The decision to set up a panel was taken at the federation’s executive meeting at Bhubaneswar on December 22.

Rai tested positive for steroid stanozolol at the National Games in Guwahati last February. That was his second doping offence, the first being in the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester where he tested positive for stimulant strychnine.

Stanozolol

Anita tested positive, also for stanozolol, at the 2006 National championships in Visakhapatnam. She challenged the finding of the Dope Control Centre (DCC) in the Delhi High Court which ordered her ‘B’ sample to be tested in the WADA-accredited laboratory in Penang, Malaysia. That test also came ‘positive’ resulting in her petition being dismissed.

In Anita’s case also this was her second ‘positive’ test, she having served a suspension for a stimulant violation in 2003.

The Indian federation, unsure of the rules concerning multiple violations, especially those involving a stimulant and a steroid, referred the Rai case to the international federation (IWF), but received nothing by way of guidance. It was thus that it brought the case before the Executive along with that of Anita.

Strychnine was a banned substance in 2002 and remains prohibited now also.

Had it come under ‘specified substances’ in the 2007 list Rai could have escaped with the standard two-year ban for the Guwahati offence.

Possible life ban

He now faces a life ban if rules are strictly applied.

It is a different matter that Rai should have been given a hearing much earlier since the rules stipulate a ‘timely’ hearing that should have been completed within three months of the “results management process”. That process was completed by the Indian Olympic Association last July.

Interestingly, in Anita’s case, even though she also committed a second violation, a life ban is unlikely.

For, the stimulant that was detected in her urine sample in 2003 was pseudoephedrine and that drug is no longer a prohibited substance. At best, it could be a two-year suspension for her steroid violation in 2006.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport