Is another huge doping scandal waiting to happen?

The stage is very similar, the timing too.

Four years ago, Indian athletics was rocked by a huge doping scandal when eight athletes, including six 400m runners, three of whom had been a part of the historic 2010 Commonwealth Games and Asian Games women’s 4x400m relay gold medal winning teams, tested positive.

The athletes, including Ashwini Akkunji, Mandeep Kaur, Sini Jose and Jauna Murmu, were suspended for two years, their Ukrainian coach Yuriy Ogorodnik was sacked, a few heads rolled and Sports Ministry, SAI and athletics officials vowed never to let something like that happen again.

But now, there is serious talk among top coaches that a lot of Indian athletes could be on dope. The absence of more than two dozen top athletes from the recent Federation Cup in Mangaluru, the selection meet for the coming Asian championship in China, has further added fuel to that talk.

And a few female 400m runners doing the vanishing trick from the Thiruvananthapuram SAI-LNCPE centre when the world body IAAF’s dope-testing team landed there recently and the poor attendance currently at the national camps, have only raised suspicions to a worrying high.

The AFI has now even rolled out the red carpet to welcome back Ogorodnik, who everybody said, was at the centre of the 2011 scandal.

So, is there another huge doping scandal waiting to happen in Indian athletics?

Could be… and just like 2011, we are just a few days away from the Asian championship, which begins in Wuhan on June 3, and our athletes are busy trying to qualify for next year’s Rio Olympics. Back then, it was the 2012 London Olympics. “Doesn’t everybody know why these athletes skipped the Federation Cup? They knew they would be tested…and they stayed away,” said a top coach.

But Adille Sumariwalla, the AFI President, was more than willing to explain the absence of top athletes from the Mangaluru Federation Cup.

“Give me names and I will give the reason. Ashwini Akkunji was not fit, she had an injury and she may not even be fit for the Asian championship. Jauna Murmu is also not fit, she had an injury,” Olympian Sumariwalla, a former national champion sprinter, told The Hindu .

“And Seema Antil (the women’s discus thrower was the country’s lone Asian Games gold medallist in individual events at Incheon last year) has just started her base work. And she is going off to America. Krishna Poonia (the 2010 Commonwealth Games gold medallist discus thrower) has an injury which she is just recovering from.”

Triple jumper Renjith Maheswary, Adille said, was unfit while Incheon Asiad women’s 1500m bronze medallist O.P. Jaisha’s pull-out was a strategic decision.

“Her coach (Belarussian Nikolai Snesarav) has said that he does not have enough time to prepare Jaisha… she may probably even miss the Asian track and field meet,” explained Adille.

“He’s getting her ready for the World championship (in Beijing in August). These are strategic decisions. He wants to bring her straight for the World championship.”

So, why did the quartermilers run away from Thiruvananthapuram SAI if they were all clean?

“I don’t know why they are after those poor girls. They are literally getting dope-tested every 10 to 12 days. Somebody is seriously after them. If you look, the day the dope guys had come, they had taken leave the day before and they had left the night before. So, where is the question of running away?”

“They (dope-testing officials) had come in the morning, at 7 o’clock and the athletes had left the previous day. How is it running away,” said the AFI chief. “This is because of some jealousy stuff… my athlete is not winning, so I have to bring down that athlete who could win. We get a weekly report of everything that is happening in camps, of each athlete.”

So, does that mean that there is nothing to worry about?

“Let me tell you…doping at the national camps is close to impossible, especially in the North. Because NADA (National Anti-Doping Agency) lands every third day, catches somebody or the other. Today, it will catch these two fellows, tomorrow those two, you don’t know when your turn will come.

“So, if you’re training in Delhi, if you’re training at Sonepat, if you’re training at Patiala and the people who are on the ‘whereabouts list’ — the 4x400 girls are there — it is very difficult,” he said.

But Sumariwalla said there could be question marks on athletes who are not training at national camps.

“Guys who are training at Kolkata, may be, guys who are not training at national camps, I would put a 100 per cent question mark on them. Guys who report at camps for two days and run away, 200 per cent,” he said.