Anju Bobby George.
| Photo Credit: Stan Rayan
Five years in the past, Asian champion quartermiler Nirmala Sheoran was punished with a four-year ban for failing a dope take a look at and her outcomes from August 2016 to November 2018 have been disqualified. That meant that Nirmala would lose the 400m gold which she gained on the 2017 Bhubaneswar Asian Championships and Jisna Mathew, who had completed third in that closing, ought to have acquired a silver medal.
“I have not got the silver medal yet. But after we wrote to the Athletics Federation of India, we got a letter saying that I have been upgraded from bronze to silver,” mentioned Jisna.
The Odisha Government had additionally offered Rs 10 lakh to the gold medal winners, Rs 7.5 lakh for silver and Rs 5 lakh for bronze on the 2017 Asians held in that State however Jisna has not heard something in regards to the prize-money which she was presupposed to have obtained for the silver.
Nirmala, from Haryana, returned to nationwide competitors finally 12 months’s Inter-State meet, and final month was handed an eight-year ban for a second doping violation which occurred final 12 months.
Around the identical time, information got here in that hammer thrower Ok.M. Rachna had been banned for 12 years for a second doping offence.
As the Indian monitor and discipline season begins on this Paris Olympics 12 months with the 400m Indian Open in Thiruvananthapuram on March 18, a giant query retains popping up… are cheats getting extra assured?
“Once they commit a crime, it looks like they have no fear when they do it a second time. Once they are caught, they have to undergo multiple tests before being cleared to compete. So they probably think since they have undergone so many tests, nobody will come to test them again,” mentioned Anju Bobby George, the nation’s lone feminine World Championships medallist, in a chat with The Hindu.
“It’s tough to stop them, but we can try our maximum and if more athletes are testing positive, the others will get scared. We need to find the window when the athletes take these substances and test them rapidly during this period.
“Mostly, athletes take maximum dope during the development period, it could be from October to February. The development months are normally the build-up period, they should do more testing during this period. It will be cleared out in March and from April our competitions start.”
Anju, additionally the AFI’s senior vice-president, felt that athletes who end behind the cheats ought to get the medals and the opposite prizes that they missed out on.
“Normally athletes are supposed to lose their medals and other prizes received during the ban period. That is not happening, but we have to initiate action in this regard.”
