India continues to hold on to its dubious distinction of being one of the leading countries with dope offenders.
According to the recently released 2022 statistics by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), out of 3865 samples handled by National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA), 125 (3.2 per cent) tested positive — the most in any country.
Russian (10186 samples) and American (6782) agencies have reported 85 and 84 positive results respectively.
NADA’s figures also record the highest percentage of positive results for 2000-plus samples tested by an agency and joint highest for 1000-plus samples. The South African agency has 2.9 per cent (2033 samples) and the Vietnamese agency has 3.2 per cent (1105 samples) of positive tests.
As far as NADA’s figures are concerned, some disciplines, including athletics, boxing, wrestling and weightlifting, in which India has medalled in the Olympics have also contributed to this.
Wrestling has registered 6.3 per cent (18) positive results from 285 samples. Other countries with a higher percentage in wrestling are Egypt (7), Pakistan (16.7), Guatemala (25) and Tajikistan (25). Egypt has tested only 43 samples, while the rest three have tested samples in single digits.
A glance at the figures of the previous years point to a disturbing trend in India.
In 2019, NADA had tested 4004 samples with a record number of positive results (225), which came to 5.6 per cent.
Even in the Covid-affected 2020 (1186 samples) and 2021 (1794), when NADA managed to handle less than 2000 samples a year, India led with 4.6 per cent and 2.3 per cent positive cases respectively.
With the Paris Olympics around the corner, NADA would do well to ramp up the number of tests to curb the doping menace.
