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Karnataka’s promising 22-year-old weightlifter Akshata Basavant Kamati used Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED) banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to lift barbells during the National Weightlifting Championship held earlier in January in Nagacoil, Tamil Nadu.
According to documents with Sportskeeda, the Karnataka weightlifter failed an in-competition dope test for cocktails of banned drugs, including stanozolol, prohibited by WADA. The test was conducted by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) during the national competition.
Akshata, the national champion in the senior women’s 87kg category during the National Weightlifting Championship, has been provisionally suspended, pending hearings and B sample testing. On her way to winning the gold medal in Nagarcoil, she lifted 121kg in clean and jerk and 85kg in the snatch for a total of 206kg which fetched her gold medal in the field of 12 lifters.
The talented weightlifter from Karnataka’s Belgaum district is the daughter of a small-time farmer and has been competing on the national circuit for the past sometimes. However, she has never failed a dope test in the past.
Akshata hogged the limelight when she claimed the women’s 81kg category title at the 2019 edition of the Khelo India Youth Games held in Pune. She also won gold at the 32nd Junior National Weightlifting Championships held in Bihar.
Akshata joined the Sports Authority of India training center in Bengaluru in 2014, said a senior weightlifting coach.
“The coaches keep a distance when the player fails a dope test,” a senior weightlifting player told Sportskeeda. “Use of performance enhancing drugs is deeply rooted in weightlifting in India and it might take huge efforts from the anti-doping agency to eradicate the menace of doping at the grassroots level."
Last year, a promising teenage weightlifter from the National Center of Excellence in Patiala, Punjab was under a WADA scanner to test positive for banned substances during the 2022 Leon World Youth Weightlifting Championship in Mexico. A 12 member Indian team, including men, competed at the World Championships in Mexico.
The test in Mexico was conducted by the International Testing Agency (ITA), which partnered with the International Weightlifting Federation in 2018 to clean sports and play a key role in the anti-doping programme of the world governing body.
