Ashwini Akkunji's 4x400-meter relay team delivered India's
first gold medal on the Commonwealth Games athletics track in 52 years at New
Delhi last October, an uplifting finish for organizers of an event that had
been lampooned in the world's media for its poor organization and allegations
of corruption.
Now Akkunji and two relay teammate are among the eight track
and field athletes banned this month for out-of-competition doping violations.
A foreign coach was dismissed by India's Sports Minister amid the whiff of
systematic doping.
"The relay team had been producing results and they
were supposed to be clean. But now that they have tested positive, there is the
possibility that they have been doping all along," Dr. PSM Chandran, head
of the Indian Federation of Sports Medicine and a former Sports Authority of
India employee, told the Associated Press.
Fame and fortune, and the temptation to take shortcuts to
achieve them, are more attainable than ever for athletes in the rapidly growing
Indian economy.
The number of positive doping cases has risen steadily in
India in the last three years. In 2009, there were 67 positives from 2,331
tests conducted by the National Anti-Doping Agency. That increased to 109
positives from 2,794 tests in 2010, and in the first six months of this year
there have been 66 positives from 1,482 tests.
The Indian government is about to ramp up the frequency and
thoroughness of the testing in the wake of the track and field scandal.
Most top-level athletes in this country of almost 1.2
billion — international cricketers excluded — don't make enough money directly
from their sport to live on. But top performances at the elite level can earn
them a good government job and increased social status.
The 23-year-old Akkunji, from a farming family in the
southern state of Karnataka, completed high school but hasn't graduated from
college, the minimum education level for anything above routine clerical work
in the government or major banks.
The women's team won the 4x400 relay at the Commonwealth
Games and again the following month at the Asian Games in Guangzhou, where
Akkunji also won the 400-meter hurdles.
With those gold-medal performances, Akkunji earned cash
awards of more than $200,000 from the central and state governments and her
employer, Indian Railways. She was dubbed the "golden girl" and
became a brand ambassador for the nationalized Corporation Bank.
Akkunji, Mandeep Kaur and Sini Jose, all members of the
winning relay squad, tested positive along with three other 400-meter runners —
Jauna Murmu, Tiana Mary and Priyanka Panwar — in recent out-of-competition
tests. Long jumper Hari Krishnan and shot put thrower Sonia Kumari also tested
positive for drugs that help build muscle.
Akkunji, Jose, Kumari, Panwar and Krishnan tested positive
for methandienone, Murmu and Mary for epimethandiol, and Kaur for stanozolol.
Norris Pritam, a former athlete and veteran journalist who
has reported on doping in India, thinks the increase in doping cases is because
the stakes have become so high for aspiring athletes in India.
"There are cash awards and promotions in their
jobs," Pritam told AP. "The problem is that incentives are being
misused and that is why coaches too have been involved.
"For an undereducated athlete here, it is all about
capitalizing during the peak to ensure a comfortable life." Former
national field hockey captain Viren Resquinha, now the chief operating officer
of Olympic Gold Quest, the private group that funded Akkunji before she tested
positive, says the system is partly to blame.
"People who advise these athletes are taking them down
the wrong path," he said. "Athletes need the right education and
advice.
"We need to have a doctor attached to each sport, a
one-contact for approval of what athletes consume because they may not know
what they are doing." Ukrainian coach Yuri Ogorodnik was among the
officials fired last week when government-backed anti-doping investigators
raided sports facilities in Patiala and Bangalore.
The Punjab government raided medical outlets selling
performance-enhancing substances near the National Institute of Sports in
Patiala, and Sukhbir Singh Badal, the state's deputy chief minister, said
criminal cases will be launched against pharmacists who sell drugs without
proper prescriptions.
The government funded Sports Authority of India employs
homegrown coaches and hires foreign experts recommended by national sports
federations. It also runs camps for athletes including at the NIS in Patiala.
Last year, a dozen Indian athletes including wrestlers,
weightlifters and swimmers tested positive for methylhexaneamine just before
the Commonwealth Games and were banned.
And the Indian Weightlifting Federation has twice been
banned from international competition due to an excess of doping cases.
An Egyptian weightlifting coach, Maged Salama, left India
three years ago alleging widespread doping.
"You have to change the system that abets lifters to go
for systematic doping to enhance performance," Salama told the Indian
media.
Resquinha doesn't think India's athletics image is beyond
repair.
"India's reputation can be restored," he said,
"by being strict in the future."
