London Olympics bronze medallist Yogeshwar Dutt has come forward in support of fellow wrestler Narsingh Yadav after the latter’s alleged involvement in the doping controversy that has rendered him provisionally suspended from the approaching Olympics.
There has been a lot of talk on the matter after both of Narsingh's samples A and B tested positive for high contents of methandienone when the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) conducted an out-of-competition check earlier this month. Expressing utter ignorance on the banned steroid detected in his samples, Narsingh has claimed his innocence throughout and also hinted at a conspiracy aimed at throttling his progress towards Rio 2016.
When it was learnt that the samples of Sandeep Tulsi Yadav, Narsingh’s roommate and sparring partner from the Sports Authority of India (SAI) Centre in Sonepat, Haryana also returned positive results for the same prohibited substance, the suspicions grew stronger that it could be indeed an attempted sabotage. Both the athletes used to share the same food which could easily have been tampered with.
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In the wake of these revelations, Mr. Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, president of the Wrestling Federation of India stood by the talented wrestler saying that he believes in Narsingh’s integrity and a thorough probe should be conducted in order to arrive at justice. Following suit was Yogeshwar Dutt, who himself is participating in the 65 kg Men’s Freestyle Wrestling event at Rio, and took to Twitter to share his views on the dope scandal on Tuesday.
Deeply saddened for the cause of wrestling as a sport, Yogi urged the governing bodies to carry out a proper investigation. He further added that he firmly believes that a wrestler as accomplished as Narsingh would never indulge in such malpractice.
