India may be a long way off from being counted among the sporting power-houses in the world, but as far as finding a short-cut to a podium goes, the nation is placed third in the world.
In the latest report published by the World Anti-Doping Agency, India are placed third for a third straight year for the number of doping violations in the world. The report is for the year 2015 and the country saw as many as 117 athlete testing positive for banned substances.
Ahead of India are the Russian Federation (176) and Italy (129) in the doping violation chart released by the WADA. All the violations by Indians came from urine samples.
The violations were committed during 2015 and the WADA report was prepared after compiling information of analytical findings and sanctions rendered till January 31 this year by various accredited anti-doping bodies.
This is the first set of Anti-Doping Rule Violation statistics under the revised WADA Code and third such report in its history since 2013.
Focus on India
The worrying sign for India is that the number of dope offenders has been increasing in the last three years. India had 91 and 96 Anti-doping Rule Violations (ADRVs) in 2013 and 2014 respectively.
Of the 117 Indian dope offenders of 2015, two are non-analytical rule violations, which means the sportspersons were not tested positive themselves. Instead, the violation was made when they failure to submit to a test or were in possession, use or trafficking of a prohibited substance by athletes and support personnel.
Of the 115 negative tests, 78 were samples of male athletes while 37 were female.
Weightlifters Biggest Violators
Among individual sports, weightlifting has taken over athletics as the dirtiest with a whopping 56 Indian lifters (32 male and 24 female) punished for doping.
Athletics contributed the second highest number of dope offenders with (14 men and 7 women), followed by boxing (8), wrestling (8), cycling (4), kabaddi (4), aquatics (3), powerlifting (3), judo (2), wushu (2), rowing, bodybuilding (1), hockey (1), football (1) and street and ball hockey (1).
(With inputs from PTI)
Join The Quint on WhatsApp. Type “JOIN” and send to 9910181818
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)