Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 22

The sports of bodybuilding, powerlifting and weightlifting have once again thrust India into notoriety with third place on the list of dope offenders for 2019. Only Russia (167 violations) and Italy (157) were ahead of India’s tally of 152 in the report by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

However, this number could rise as the report shows there were 89 that were yet to be resolved for 2019 — against 225 adverse analytical findings (AAF), 135 had been given suspensions.

Interestingly, the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) took only 4,004 samples that year. In comparison, Germany collected over 15,000 samples, the USA over 11,000 and Italy over 8,000.

In India’s case, bodybuilding as a sport was a major defaulter with 57 cases, followed by weightlifting (25) and athletics (20). Interestingly, the report also cites new sports disciplines in the shame list — arm-wrestling and Sambo contributed one case each in India’s tally, while cricket had four cases.