Top national athletes and teams are inside Sports Authority of India centres or at their own homes trying to train under limiting conditions during the national lockdown in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Be it Javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra or the senior men’s and women’s national hockey teams, all the athletes have been training indoors and working out to remain in shape. Technical training has come to complete halt. It appears any resumption of dope testing of athletes will have to wait till further clarity regarding relaxations in lockdown in different cities.
The Sports Authority of India and National Anti Doping Agency await clarification on whether dope testing can resume from either the respective state governments where the SAI premises are located or athletes are residing, or from Ministry of Home Affairs which has been the nodal ministry regarding the nationwide lockdown and the provisions of it.
With the central government allowing a few relaxations, the National Sports Federations and Indian Olympic Association had raised the matter with the Union sports ministry as well as SAI officials recently to allow some form of training to be resumed conditional to all precautions being followed by the athletes. Also, in a recent meeting organised via video conference between IOA, NSFs and SAI for planning purposes, many NSFs raised concern over lack of dope testing due to the lockdown. With athletes at home or even in their respective hostel rooms, many sports administrators are concerned how they can be “tempted” to use banned drugs given that no random testing is taking place right now, and consider it as a “safe period” to do so.
“Yes, I was one of the federation officials to raise this concern in that meeting. We have written to SAI and NADA to resume testing as soon as possible but we are awaiting a response. I am told that since this is an unprecedented situation, NADA or even SAI, which is housing athletes in NIS Patiala, require permission from the Ministry of Home Affairs,” said Adille Sumariwalla, President, Athletics Federation of India.
However, Director General NADA Naveen Agarwal refuted AFI president’s stance, saying “NADA is ready to conduct dope tests even now. Who said tests cannot be conducted? If the concerned federation or SAI tells us to test we shall do so,” he told THE WEEK. He also added that any testing, movement of dope control officials etc is dependent on “local authorities giving due permission”.
For example, NIS Patiala, where most of the track and field athletes are staying presently, is totally shut and, as per orders, no one is allowed to enter or exit the premises during the lockdown. It is operating on very minimal and essential staff. The SAI has to permit the NADA team to enter but it needs permission from the government to allow it to do so.
Since national camps are all off, federations have not written to NADA as per the followed protocol vis-a-vis information regarding athletes and teams' whereabouts. Federations or even SAI cannot request NADA to conduct dope tests on specific teams or athletes as it is the agency’s sole prerogative and it has to ensure the surprise and random elements in dope testing.
Testing teams are not part of essential services, but NADA will need to seek permission, passes for its team and conveyance to be able to access athletes in different corners of the country, apart from logistical issues and also social distancing and precautionary issues. It remains to be seen who—NADA, SAI or NSFs—will seek clarifications and get due permissions to resume dope testing of elite athletes at the earliest.
