Sanjeet Singh Joon, a 29-year-old sprinter from Jhajjar in Haryana, has been banned for eight years for a second anti-doping rule violation. By an order dated December 27 last but made public now, a National Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel (ADDP) overruled his plea to reduce the ban by a year after he claimed he had accepted the violation early.
In his first sprint on return from the first ban, Sanjeet Singh clocked a slow 11.19 seconds in the heats in the National Open Athletics Championships at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru on October 15, 2022. He did not even make it to the semifinals where 24 sprinters ran in three heats.
However, in just his second event after returning to competitive athletics, Sanjeet Singh clocked the fastest time among 14 entrants in the Indian Grand Prix 2 in Thiruvananthapuram, on March 27, 2023. However, he tested positive for hormone and metabolic modulator/GW1516 Sulfone, the substance that had earned him a four-year ban earlier in his career.
When the National Dope Testing Laboratory in New Delhi reported an adverse analytical failure of the sample collected in Thiruvananthapuram, NADA notified Sanjeet Singh that he had tested positive for a banned substance and provisionally suspended him. The athlete chose not to opt for the B sample to be tested.
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During the virtual hearings on November 7 and December 13, the athlete’s counsel Prateek Dhanda confessed the doping violation and sought the reduction of the period of ineligibility citing early acceptance. However, the ADDP, chaired by Vineet Dhanda, noted that Sanjeet Singh had not submitted the required form within 20 days of the notice of charge being issued to him and imposed an eight-year ban on him.
“We further direct that during the period of ineligibility, Sanjeet shall not be permitted to participate in any capacity (or assist any athlete participating in any capacity) in a competition, event or other activity (other than authorised anti-doping education or rehabilitation programmes) organised, convened, authorised, or recognised by NADA or a Signatory,” the order added.
His first rule violation occurred when he won the 2018 Inter-Services Championships in Bengaluru in 10.26 seconds, was also for the same substance GW1516 Sulfone and Sulfoxide. GW1516 was developed in the 1990s as a treatment for diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease. It was discontinued in 2007 after it was linked to the rapid development of cancer during trials on mice.
On October 15, 2019, an ADDP ordered his four-year ban to start from January 15, 2019, the date on which he was provisionally suspended. However, he went on appeal and got the commencement of his ineligibility amended to September 19, 2018, the date on which his sample was collected.
Sanjeet is the fourth Indian track and field athlete who is currently serving an eight-year ban. Sprinters Priyanka Panwar and Dharambir Singh as well as Hammer Thrower Gurmeet Singh precede him on that list. Besides, Jitender Singh, another Hammer Thrower, is serving a lifetime ban, imposed on him in October 2010, for a second offence.
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