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With less than two months to go for the Hangzhou Asian Games in September, it has been an international embarrassment for India as promising judo player Jasleen Singh Saini failed a dope test for performance-enhancing drugs during the 2023 Taipei Asian Open held last month in Chinese Taipei.
It will also be a major setback to the national judo team as Saini, a probable for Hangzhou Asian Games, will be out of action. He has been provisionally suspended pending a hearing, a national judo coach familiar with the development told Sportskeeda.
According to the judo coach, Saini failed a dope test for SARMS. If found guilty, Saini could face four years suspension for the first offense.
At the Taipei Asian Open, the 25-year-old Punjab player topped his Pool D and defeated South Korea’s Park Chanwoo to earn a gold medal in the below 66kg category. He was later subjected to a dope test by an international testing agency.
Saini was the winner of the men’s below 66kg bout during the Asian Games selection trials held in April at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Sports Complex in New Delhi.
Saini has been pursuing judo for over a decade. He had a good chance to compete in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games through continental quota system but fell short of ranking points and missed the flight to Japan in 2021.
In the build-up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, the Punjab judoka was among five players who were given extensive international exposure by the government.
Saini is the third high-profile judo player shortlisted for the Asian Games to have failed a dope test within a span of two months.
Earlier, Harshdeep Brar (below 81kg) and Gulab Ali Mohsin (below 60kg) failed out-of-competition tests conducted by the National Anti Doping Agency (NADA) at the national camp in Bhopal. Both Mohsin and Brar were winners of their respective weight categories during the national selection trials in April.
“It’s unfortunate that three top judo players have failed dope tests ahead of the Asian Games,” a senior judo coach rued.
