The World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) has filed an appeal with the National Anti-Doping Appeal Panel (NADAP) seeking enhancement of sanction in the case of four female 400m runners.
The WADA appeal gives an entirely new twist to the high-profile doping case and comes at a time when NADAP was in the process of finalising its verdict on an appeal by the four runners against their one-year suspensions imposed by the National Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel (NADDP).
NADAP, headed by Justice C. K. Mahajan (retd.), had reserved its order on the appeal filed by the women, seeking either exoneration or reduction in the punishment. They had also sought sample collection date as the date of commencement of their suspensions, hoping to gain a week to 10 days in order to keep alive their chances of competing in an Olympic qualification relay on their return to competition.
The Mahajan panel is now unlikely to give its verdict straightaway on the quarter-milers' appeal since it would only be prudent to take up the WADA appeal as well at this stage before independently disposing of the runners' appeal.
The WADA has sought a standard two-year sanction for the girls, all of them having turned in ‘positive' tests for steroids. Three of them, Ashwini A.C., Sini Jose and Priyanka Panwar, tested positive for steroid methandienone while the fourth, Tiana Mary Thomas, was found to have ingested methandienone as well as another steroid, stanozolol.
‘Exceptional circumstances'
NADDP, chaired by retired judge Dinesh Dayal, had ruled that ‘exceptional circumstances' did exist in the case of the runners as they trusted their coach (Ukrainian Yuriy Ogordonik) and consumed the supplement (ginseng) provided by him, leading to the ‘positive' tests.
Under the ‘no significant fault or negligence' clause, the panel thus reduced the sanction to one year, a decision that the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) found hard to appeal against. NADA changed track somewhat when the girls' appeal came up before the Mahajan panel, arguing that there were questions that remained unanswered during the disciplinary panel hearings.
The absence of a NADA appeal for enhancement of suspension, something that was virtually taken for granted initially but was apparently stalled by government interference, meant that the Mahajan panel could only look into the possibility of reducing the sanction or backdating the suspension commencement.
The WADA appeal, however, should not only compensate for NADA's “soft approach” but also should provide the latter — and possibly the ministry — with an insight into the relentless manner in which WADA pursues such cases to give meaning and substance to the concept of “zero tolerance.”
Obviously, the question of only two of the girls — Tiana and Mandeep Kaur — testing positive for two steroids with the others, including another 400m runner Jauna Murmu, coming up with just one after having purportedly consumed the same “contaminated” supplement should figure in the WADA argument.
WADA, which is yet to lose an appeal to NADAP, is also expected to focus on the “negligence” part, a point that practically clinches the argument in such cases the world over.
By taking the plea that a coach had given a medicine or a supplement that led to the ‘positive' test or by claiming that they trusted the coach or doctor or nutritionist and felt no further need to verify a product that they were about to consume, has rarely, if ever, helped athletes beat a doping charge.
