In a second shocking revelation in quick succession, it has been brought to notice that a whopping 58 weightlifters from India were caught for doping violations in 2015.
Five days after the World Anti-Doping Agency's list of top doping offenders in 2014 ranked India 3rd worldwide for the second time running, Union Sports Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, in a letter to the Lok Sabha, has disclosed the aforementioned information today.
According to Mr. Sonowal, disciplinary proceedings have already been initiated against the identified guilty ones, including the two perpetrators caught by the International Weightlifting Federation during last year’s Commonwealth Championships held in Pune.
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He added, however, that despite the instances of misdemeanour increasing in occurrence lately, the percentage of positive tests among all the samples collected has remained fairly unchanged – 2.17% in 2013, 2.32% in 2014 and 2.27% in 2015.
Since 2009, the National Anti-Doping Agency(NADA) has maintained a strict regime to tackle the crisis of doping violations in India. The latest reports should now serve as a compelling alarm to crack down on such prevalent malpractice in sports across the country, today.
