Author: G Rajaraman

World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) president Witold Banka on Monday said the Agency would continue to protect sport without fear or favour. He termed the allegations that WADA was involved in a cover-up of doping violations by 23 Chinese swimmers in 2021 as politically motivated and said the Agency applied the same procedures regardless of the athletes’ nationality. WADA expectedly continued defending its position of not going on appeal against the Chinese Anti-Doping Agency (CHINADA) decision not to press charges of potential anti-doping rule violations by 23 swimmers in January 2021. Each of them tested positive for Trimetazidine (TMZ), a metabolic…

Middle-distance runner Shalu Choudhary’s conviction that she had not ingested any prohibited substances when winning the bronze medal in the women’s 800m at the National Inter-State Athletics Championships in Chennai in June 2022 saw her go the distance and secure an exoneration from charges of committing an Anti-Doping Rule Violation. On Thursday, a National Anti-Doping Appeal Panel (ADAP) relied on a DNA report from Kings College, London, to exonerate Shalu Chaudhary. Having teamed up with her counsel Parth Goswami to wage a relentless battle for her reputation, the Delhi-based middle-distance runner can now return to competitive athletics. Back in April…

Some journeys start with uncertainty but become amazing as they cross milestone after milestone. Even as the unstoppable force called the Indian Premier League (IPL) cruises along to its 16th anniversary on Thursday, it is hard to forget that another Twenty20 product, the Champions League, that was launched in 2009, ran aground after just five editions. Talking of journeys though, each year I am reminded of one drive home from the Feroz Shah Kotla. The agony was piled on me because of multiple identities that the IPL appeals to. As a Tamil who was born and brought up in Hyderabad…

India may draw some solace from the fact that its war against doping has begun to produce some results. While it is true that the number of samples testing positive for banned substances in 2023 has increased from the previous year, it is also true that there appears to be a drop in the percentage of such positive tests when compared to 2022. To some, the 131 ADRVs (Anti-Doping Rule Violations) – from a total of 5801 tests – point to the success of NADA’s (National Anti-Doping Agency) testing programme. It indicates that the NADA has done its job of…

When Chadarghat High School Principal Shawcross told the diminutive lad that he had no future in football, he would have no inkling of the towering stature SA Rahim would acquire as player and coach. Just over than a century after that, the Amit Ravindernath Sharma-directed film, Maidaan, revives memories of arguably the Indian football’s greatest coach, Syed Abdul Rahim. Of course, the Ajay Devgn-starrer does much more than only circulate Rahim’s aura. It brings the class of 1962 back in the collective consciousness of the sports community. The focus on Indian hockey’s golden past has been so much that the…

Three track and field athletes, who have not yet celebrated their 14th, 16th and 18th birthdays respectively, and a weightlifter who is just 15 are among 73 athletes who are currently placed on provisional suspension by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA). As many as 44 names were added to the list of athletes on provisional suspensions available on the NADA website. Murli Kumar Gavit, a 2019 Asian Athletics Championships 10000m silver medalist, is the biggest of the 16 names in Athletics. With Weightlifting (13), Athletics accounts for bulk of the 44 new names. Boxing (3), Kabaddi and Powerlifting (2 each)…

Sport is but a microcosm of the society in which it is played. And while each has its own set of rules and regulations, it has to embrace the values and beliefs of the society at large. And if the world speaks of health as a matter of an individual’s right, it goes without argument that it does not exclude athlete health from its ambit. The theme for World Health Day 2024, My Health, My Right, has been chosen to champion the right of everyone, everywhere to have access to quality health services, education, and information, as well as safe…

The worst fears have come true, and India has topped the 2022 World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Testing Figures Report with 125 of the 3865 samples collected by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) showing up positive (Adverse Analytical Failure, AAF) for prohibited substances. Russian National Anti-Doping Organisation, which led the Hall of Shame in 2021, managed its anti-doping programme enough to drop below India this time. It had 85 AAFs out of the 10186 samples it tested in 2022. Russia’s 0.8 per cent AAF compares favourably with NADA’s 3.2 per cent AAFs of the total samples tested. This should prompt a…

The divide between fans who contribute generously to the making of a sport and fanatics who discredit it is growing. And the rising number of fanatics are tarnishing the image of fans in the Indian Premier League this season. No athlete – and his/her family – deserves such treatment, no matter how much he/she seems to ignore the provocation. Indeed, each year we lament the degeneration of the IPL spectator. For instance, here is what I wrote on RevSportz last year when instead of celebrating centuries by Shubman Gill and Virat Kohli many fans ended up indulging in toxic trolling.…

India’s top weightlifter Mirabai Chanu on Monday ensured she will complete a hat-trick of Olympic Games appearances when she heads to Paris 2024. She had contrasting campaigns in Rio de Janeiro 2016 and Tokyo 2020. And, more than anyone else, she will know that she has work to be done if she has to bridge the gap between promise of being a repeat medalist and performance. On Monday, she had total lifts of 184kg in the IWF 2024 World Cup in Phuket, Thailand. Ostensibly, it is her lowest in more than eight years since she compiled 183kg in the 2015…