The Hindu : Sport : Sukanya suspended for two years

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Sukanya suspended for two years

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Nearly 14 months after she tested positive, former National champion hammer thrower Sukanya Mishra was on Tuesday suspended for two years.

Since she had not undergone a provisional suspension, for inexplicable reasons, her suspension will run from the date of the decision.

Sukanya tested positive for steroid stanozolol in an out-of-competition test done on November 3, 2009. Strangely there was no provisional suspension.

The National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) started imposing provisional suspensions only much after Sukanya was brought before the disciplinary panel headed by Dinesh Dayal, a retired judge. During the intervening period, she was barred from competitions by her employer, the Railways.

Sukanya appeared before the panel only on July 5, 2010 after she sought two postponements of scheduled hearings. Then followed a series of hearings at which her lawyer, Sanjeev Kumar Dubey, tried to raise several objections against procedures.

Points finger at coach

Sukanya argued that whatever she had consumed was supplied by her coach. She also alleged that coaches were selling drugs in camps.

Sukanya, 25, had participated in the Asian athletics championships in Guangzhou in 2009, finishing sixth with a throw of 55.30m. She has a best of 56.96m achieved while winning the title in the 2009 inter-State championships in Chennai.

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu sprinter Suresh Sathya, who was part of the Indian teams at the last Commonwealth Games and the Guangzhou Asian Games, appeared before the panel to face the charge of a steroid violation.

In an out-of-competition test done before the Asian Games he had returned a ‘positive' result for nandrolone but since the result was made known only on his return, he competed in the Guangzhou Games.

Sathya came sixth in the 200 metres in Guangzhou and was part of the 4x100m Indian relay team which finished fourth.

Seeks more time

The sprinter told the panel that he had undergone a knee surgery in February 2010 and he might have ingested some drug at that time that could have led to the ‘positive'. He sought more time to get details of the medicines he had taken at the time of surgery from his doctor, who he said was “out of station”.

Sathya also did not mention any medicine or anything about the surgery in his dope control form.

Another athlete, 400m runner Vinay Chaudhary, who was part of the Indian team for the Commonwealth Games, but was ordered to be removed from the ‘Games Village” following a ‘positive' report, pleaded that the ‘Russian doctor' had supplied supplements to him and others in the Indian team while training in London last year.

Chaudhary, who has tested positive for steroid stanozolol, stated that he was interested in engaging a lawyer and he would be prepared to bring with him the remainder of the supplements he had taken at the next hearing.

Woman thrower Saroj Sihag, who is facing a charge of stanozolol use, argued in a resumed hearing that there could have been a manipulation or contamination of her sample during collection procedure when she had to leave the station with a partially-filled beaker at the disposal of the officials. She also claimed that she was not allowed the chance to witness the ‘B' sample test.

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