India's doping woes: WADA numbers show India has highest positivity rate among major countries
India
's doping woes came to the fore once again with the country topping the
World Anti-Doping Agency
's 2023 testing figures among countries which analysed 5,000 or more samples even as the sports ministry promised an "aggressive clean-up" and an amended Anti-Doping Act after addressing objections from the WADA.
India's positivity rate for banned substances stood at 3.8 per cent -- 214
Adverse Analytical Findings
(AAF) from 5606 samples. The sample size was significantly higher from 2022 when 3865 tests returned an AAF rate of 3.2 per cent.
Of the 5606 tests, 2748 were conducted in-competition. India's positivity rate for banned substances was significantly higher than China (28,197 samples, 0.2 per cent AAF rate), USA (6798 samples, 1.0 per cent AAF rate), France (11,368 samples, 0.9 per cent AAF rate), Germany (15,153 samples, 0.4 per cent AAF rate) and Russia (10,395 samples, 1.0 per cent AAF rate).
As compared to India's 214, France, Russia, USA, China and Germany recorded 105, 99, 66, 60 and 57 AAFs respectively.
"Any amount of doping is unacceptable but we have to acknowledge that our testing is vigorous and with every year the sample size is increasing. With our aggressive awareness campaigns, we intend to bring the numbers down in the next two years," a sports ministry source said when approached for a comment on the latest report.
Live Events
Globally, 204,809 tests were conducted in 2023, of which 1820 came positive for banned drugs with India's share of 214 accounting for over 11 per cent of the total number of offenders, the highest for any country.
In all, Delhi's National Dope testing Laboratory (NDTL) tested 6,077 samples, including those from neighbouring countries. It's Adverse Analytical Findings (AAF) rate of 3.63 per cent makes up the highest percentage of positive dope results among the 30 WADA-accredited facilities across the world.
Athletics leads the number of India's positive cases with 61 AAFs from 1223 samples -- 567 in-competition and 539 out-of-competition urine samples as well as 117 blood samples. One AAF was reported from among the blood samples.
Weightlifting accounted for 38 AAFs from 451 samples, while powerlifting and wrestling contributed 28 and 10 AAFs respectively.
The numbers have expectedly raised an alarm and an admission that the country is yet to implement its Anti-Doping Act, which was passed in 2022, due to objections from WADA on some unspecified provisions.
"The NADA bill will be brought back to the Parliament after a restructuring. We have addressed the objections raised by WADA, which required changes to certain provisions," a sports ministry source said.
The National Anti-Doping Act, 2022 empowers the
National Anti-Doping Agency
(NADA) with legal authority and investigative powers similar to law enforcement bodies.
NADA even conducted a workshop recently involving officers of CBI and INTERPOL to understand doping investigation mechanisms, including interrogation of suspected dope offenders and banned substances' suppliers.
"The ministry is going to tackle this menace aggressively. There will be compulsory monthly doping awareness programmes and nutritional supplements will be tested at specialised labs in Gandhinagar and Delhi to ensure that they do not contain prohibited substances," a ministry source said.
"Most of the time, doping by a young athlete is either unintentional due to lack of knowledge or in desperation to get that one national performance that would help in getting a government job. But we will drill it into their psyche that they have more to lose if they don't comply with anti-doping rules," he added.
A NADA source said that India has demonstratively upped its numbers as far as testing is concerned and in relative terms, there has been a marginal decline in positivity rate.
"We had nearly the same positivity rate when we tested close to 4000 samples and now that rate has more or less remained the same with 1500 more tests this year. So, in relative terms there is a decline," he said.
"But of course, even this number is unacceptable given our ambition to be a sporting powerhouse," he added.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hindustan Times
3 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
India tops doping charts, sports ministry promises to fight the menace
New Delhi: The menace of doping has hit Indian sport hard in recent times. The latest testing figures from the World Anti-Doping Agency for the year 2023 reveal a rather gloomy situation with India emerging at the top of the worldwide chart in the number of positive cases. Doping, conceptual illustration. (Getty Images/Science Photo Libra) The National Anti-Doping Agency recorded 213 Adverse Analytical Findings (AAF) or positive cases from 5606 samples collected. The percentage of positive cases therefore stood at 3.8 — the highest among nations that tested more than 1000 samples for the year. From 5184 urine samples, 211 AAF were reported while 422 blood samples produced two positive cases. For the record, the number of samples collected by NADA in 2023 is the highest ever. In 2022, NADA conducted 3865 tests with the AAF rate of 3.2%. In 2021, 1794 samples were tested and the corresponding AAF was 2.3%. In 2019, India had tested 4,004 samples and the number of positive cases were 224 — 5.6% rate. The sports ministry said it has significantly increased testing and is determined to fight the menace. 'We are determined to fight doping. It is not acceptable. That's why we have increased the sample size every year. If you see the result, there is a decline in the rate over the last few years from over 5 per cent to three per cent. We have been transparent in our policy,' said a top sports ministry official. 'We have made testing compulsory for athletes' national camps across various age groups. They are being tested frequently. We are also focussing on awareness drives,' the official added. To counter doping, India brought the National-Anti Doping Law in 2022 that focussed on building institutional capabilities in anti-doping, providing legal sanctity to NADA and NDTL, restructuring NADA's governance mechanism, enhancing cop-operation among agencies, and independent mechanism for anti-doping adjudication. However, the law could not be implemented because WADA had raised objections to certain provisions of the law. The sports ministry is now working towards incorporating the suggested changes and bringing in an amendment. In the WADA testing report, China tested a total of 28,197 samples and returned 0.2% AAF. Germany, France, Russia all had more than 10,00 samples collected, with the rate of AAF within 1%. USA had collected 6798 with 1.0% AAF rate. In India track and field returned the most number of positive cases — 61 positive results from 1223 samples. The number of in-competition AAF was 47 while 14 tested positive out of competition. Weightlifters were next in line with 38 positive cases. From 451 samples, weightlifting recorded a whopping percentage of 8.4 positive cases. While AAF are just positive cases, an anti-doping rule violation or doping offence is determined after completion of the hearing process. Mission Olympic Cell The sports ministry will provide an out-of-pocket allowance of ₹ 25,000 per month for hockey national campers. Eighty players (40 men and 40 women) will get the financial grant under the Target Olympic Podium Scheme, it was decided at the Mission Olympic Cell's meeting on Thursday. 'Hockey India requested the government to provide the campers with an allowance and we have decided to accept it,' sports minister Mansukh Mandaviya said. Several athletes who performed well at the Asian Athletics Championships in Gumi have been added in the TOPS group while five tennis players and two gymnasts including Pranati Nayak have been brought in Target Asian Games Group. The ministry is also looking to extend its talent identification drive by encouraging talented youngsters to upload their video of performance in an official app which can be assessed by expert SAI panels.
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
7 hours ago
- Business Standard
India's doping woes: WADA numbers shows high positivity rate for India
India's doping woes came to the fore once again with the country topping the World Anti-Doping Agency's 2023 testing figures among countries which analysed 5,000 or more samples even as the sports ministry promised an "aggressive clean-up" and an amended Anti-Doping Act after addressing objections from the WADA. India's positivity rate for banned substances stood at 3.8 per cent -- 214 Adverse Analytical Findings (AAF) from 5606 samples. The sample size was significantly higher from 2022 when 3865 tests returned an AAF rate of 3.2 per cent. Of the 5606 tests, 2748 were conducted in-competition. India's positivity rate for banned substances was significantly higher than China (28,197 samples, 0.2 per cent AAF rate), USA (6798 samples, 1.0 per cent AAF rate), France (11,368 samples, 0.9 per cent AAF rate), Germany (15,153 samples, 0.4 per cent AAF rate) and Russia (10,395 samples, 1.0 per cent AAF rate). As compared to India's 214, France, Russia, USA, China and Germany recorded 105, 99, 66, 60 and 57 AAFs respectively. "Any amount of doping is unacceptable but we have to acknowledge that our testing is vigorous and with every year the sample size is increasing. With our aggressive awareness campaigns, we intend to bring the numbers down in the next two years," a sports ministry source said when approached for a comment on the latest report. Globally, 204,809 tests were conducted in 2023, of which 1820 came positive for banned drugs with India's share of 214 accounting for over 11 per cent of the total number of offenders, the highest for any country. In all, Delhi's National Dope testing Laboratory (NDTL) tested 6,077 samples, including those from neighbouring countries. It's Adverse Analytical Findings (AAF) rate of 3.63 per cent makes up the highest percentage of positive dope results among the 30 WADA-accredited facilities across the world. Athletics leads the number of India's positive cases with 61 AAFs from 1223 samples -- 567 in-competition and 539 out-of-competition urine samples as well as 117 blood samples. One AAF was reported from among the blood samples. Weightlifting accounted for 38 AAFs from 451 samples, while powerlifting and wrestling contributed 28 and 10 AAFs respectively. The numbers have expectedly raised an alarm and an admission that the country is yet to implement its Anti-Doping Act, which was passed in 2022, due to objections from WADA on some unspecified provisions. "The NADA bill will be brought back to the Parliament after a restructuring. We have addressed the objections raised by WADA, which required changes to certain provisions," a sports ministry source said. The National Anti-Doping Act, 2022 empowers the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) with legal authority and investigative powers similar to law enforcement bodies. NADA even conducted a workshop recently involving officers of CBI and INTERPOL to understand doping investigation mechanisms, including interrogation of suspected dope offenders and banned substances' suppliers. "The ministry is going to tackle this menace aggressively. There will be compulsory monthly doping awareness programmes and nutritional supplements will be tested at specialised labs in Gandhinagar and Delhi to ensure that they do not contain prohibited substances," a ministry source said. "Most of the time, doping by a young athlete is either unintentional due to lack of knowledge or in desperation to get that one national performance that would help in getting a government job. But we will drill it into their psyche that they have more to lose if they don't comply with anti-doping rules," he added. A NADA source said that India has demonstratively upped its numbers as far as testing is concerned and in relative terms, there has been a marginal decline in positivity rate. "We had nearly the same positivity rate when we tested close to 4000 samples and now that rate has more or less remained the same with 1500 more tests this year. So, in relative terms there is a decline," he said. "But of course, even this number is unacceptable given our ambition to be a sporting powerhouse," he added. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Hindu
8 hours ago
- The Hindu
India's doping woes: WADA numbers show India has highest positivity rate among major countries
India's doping woes came to the fore once again with the country topping the World Anti-Doping Agency's 2023 testing figures among countries which analysed 5,000 or more samples even as the sports ministry promised an "aggressive clean-up" and an amended Anti-Doping Act after addressing objections from the WADA. India's positivity rate for banned substances stood at 3.8% -- 214 Adverse Analytical Findings (AAF) from 5606 samples. The sample size was significantly higher from 2022 when 3865 tests returned an AAF rate of 3.2%. Of the 5606 tests, 2748 were conducted in-competition. India's positivity rate for banned substances was significantly higher than China (28,197 samples, 0.2% AAF rate), USA (6798 samples, 1.0% AAF rate), France (11,368 samples, 0.9% AAF rate), Germany (15,153 samples, 0.4% AAF rate) and Russia (10,395 samples, 1.0% AAF rate). As compared to India's 214, France, Russia, USA, China and Germany recorded 105, 99, 66, 60 and 57 AAFs respectively. "Any amount of doping is unacceptable but we have to acknowledge that our testing is vigorous and with every year the sample size is increasing. With our aggressive awareness campaigns, we intend to bring the numbers down in the next two years," a sports ministry source said when approached for a comment on the latest report. Globally, 204,809 tests were conducted in 2023, of which 1,820 came positive for banned drugs with India's share of 214 accounting for over 11% of the total number of offenders, the highest for any country. In all, Delhi's National Dope testing Laboratory (NDTL) tested 6,077 samples, including those from neighbouring countries. It's Adverse Analytical Findings (AAF) rate of 3.63% makes up the highest percentage of positive dope results among the 30 WADA-accredited facilities across the world. Athletics leads the number of India's positive cases with 61 AAFs from 1223 samples — 567 in-competition and 539 out-of-competition urine samples as well as 117 blood samples. One AAF was reported from among the blood samples. Weightlifting accounted for 38 AAFs from 451 samples, while powerlifting and wrestling contributed 28 and 10 AAFs respectively. The numbers have expectedly raised an alarm and an admission that the country is yet to implement its Anti-Doping Act, which was passed in 2022, due to objections from WADA on some unspecified provisions. "The NADA bill will be brought back to the Parliament after a restructuring. We have addressed the objections raised by WADA, which required changes to certain provisions," a sports ministry source said. The National Anti-Doping Act, 2022 empowers the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) with legal authority and investigative powers similar to law enforcement bodies. NADA even conducted a workshop recently involving officers of CBI and INTERPOL to understand doping investigation mechanisms, including interrogation of suspected dope offenders and banned substances' suppliers. "The ministry is going to tackle this menace aggressively. There will be compulsory monthly doping awareness programmes and nutritional supplements will be tested at specialised labs in Gandhinagar and Delhi to ensure that they do not contain prohibited substances," a ministry source said. "Most of the time, doping by a young athlete is either unintentional due to lack of knowledge or in desperation to get that one national performance that would help in getting a government job. But we will drill it into their psyche that they have more to lose if they don't comply with anti-doping rules," he added. A NADA source said that India has demonstratively upped its numbers as far as testing is concerned and in relative terms, there has been a marginal decline in positivity rate. "We had nearly the same positivity rate when we tested close to 4000 samples and now that rate has more or less remained the same with 1500 more tests this year. So, in relative terms there is a decline," he said. "But of course, even this number is unacceptable given our ambition to be a sporting powerhouse," he added.
