The shocking news coming out of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) that Indian sportspersons have topped the worldwide list for most violations for the third year in a row is an unwanted hat-trick that has also put a question mark over the Indian government’s desperate bid to be hosts for the 2036 Olympics. Ahmedabad is the host city for the 2030 Commonwealth Games. But the Olympics is the biggest prize of all. Back in July, when the Indian Olympic Association sent a high-powered delegation headed by its president, PT Usha, to the International Olympic Committee HQ in Lausanne, Switzerland, to push its case for the 2036 Games, it was told, in no uncertain terms, that it must get its anti-doping act together. So, the WADA figures have not only dealt a blow to the IOA and the government’s plans, but they are also a black mark on Indian sport in general, particularly track and field (athletics), which continues to be the worst offender.
The malaise runs so deep that even school athletics meets are tainted by doping claims. Used syringes lying discarded on washroom floors are a common sight right from the school to college to national levels. There have even been tragic-comic situations where races had just one participant, the rest scared off by the presence of the anti-doping authorities. In one race in Delhi, the winner ran out of the stadium in fear after seeing the authorities waiting at the finish line to take his sample. A total of 213 cases returned dope positive from 5,606 samples collected by the New Delhi-based National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA), the nodal body in India, in 2023, while WADA’s figures for 2024 reveal 260 violations from India, with an alarming positivity rate of 3.6 per cent. NADA’s contention that the figures are a result of its stepped-up action does not stand up to scrutiny. Many other countries, including the world sporting superpowers with much higher testing numbers, returned far fewer violations.
The rot, in fact, runs deep, with coaches, doctors, and physiotherapists all equally, if not more, culpable than the sportspersons themselves, many of whom come from poor, rural backgrounds with little or no knowledge of such a highly technical issue. They are dependent for advice on their backup teams, who are either ignorant of the complex rules and regulations involved or else themselves complicit. The incentives are the rewards, both in cash and kind, offered at the state and national levels. The government has already passed a national anti-doping bill, which needs to be more rigorously enforced to root out the menace once and for all.
