India notches up a record 260 positives for doping in 2024
A record 260 Indian athletes have tested positive for banned substances in 2024, Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports Mansukh L. Mandaviya told the Rajya Sabha on Thursday. It is the highest number of positives in a year, surpassing 225 in 2019. The other year in which more than 200 Indian athletes tested positive was 2023 when 213 failed the tests.
Replying to an unstarred question by Imran Pratapgarhi, poet and politician, the Minister revealed that the 260 positives were from a total of 7466 samples tested by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) in 2024. “Government is fully committed to curb the menace of doping in sports,” he said.
A look at the annexure reveals that nearly every other discipline in which samples were collected in 2024 has tested positive. The 260 adverse analytical findings came from 31 of the 69 sports whose athletes were tested. In 2023, the number of disciplines with positive tests were 28. It could be the second successive year in which India has topped the dubious list of dope positives.
If India can draw any consolation, it is only from the fact that there has been a marginal drop in percentage of samples testing positive in 2024 to 3.48 per cent from the 3.67 per cent the previous year. Of course, it was in 2019 that the percentage reached an all-time high of 5.61. The following year, when NADA collected 1185 samples, 4.64 per cent showed up positive.
Wrestling has seen a massive spike with 29 positive tests compared to 10 in 2023 while Boxing has seen nearly twice as many instances than the earlier year. The top 10 disciplines in which athletes tested positive in 2024 are: Athletics (76), Weightlifting (43), Wrestling (29), Boxing (17), Powerlifting (17), Kabaddi (10), Body building (8), Judo (6), Wushu (5) and CISS Wrestling (5).
It belies understanding that disciplines like Automobile sports (3), Equestrian (1), Handball (2), Kick Boxing (1), Sailing, Skating and Squash (1) have all shown up in the hall of shame for the first time in the last four years, as per the statistics annexed to the Minister’s response to the question in the Rajya Sabha.
While details of the number of samples collected from athletes in each discipline during the year was not sought and hence not available in the Minister’s written reply in Rajya Sabha, it will not be wrong to hazard a guess that, as always, the most samples will have been collected from track and field athletes.
For long, some have maintained that NADA’s focus on education and raising awareness is an inadequate measure against doping in sport. Even combined with the rising number of tests each year, the education campaign has come a cropper. The Anti-Doping warriors really need to step up their investigation to prevent the incidence of doping rather than lament the rising numbers.
All NADA has to do is to follow leads that come up during the course of hearings by Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panels and more so during the Case Resolution Agreements that 249 athletes have got into with NADA. Many of these athletes will have pointed to coaches, mentors, friends and relatives as the persons who suggested taking the risk of consuming prohibited substances.
NADA can even open its eyes and ears to media reports and social media posts. For instance, a Bengaluru doctor has gone on record as saying a parent insisted that his two sports-playing children be given growth hormone injections, an open secret has tumbled out – that parents are involved in doping of minors.
About a dozen years ago, an ADDP order sanctioning a 14-year-old for testing positive for Nandrolone suggested that the athlete’s father had taken a vial to a doctor and asked for his child to be injected. To this day, no steps appear to have been taken to even admonish that father and make other sets of parents wary of thinking of doping their children for some gains.
The IMARC has estimated that the size of India’s sports nutrition market was $1.79 billion in 2024 and is expected to rise by 6.2 per cent to be worth $ 3.31 billion in 2033. Grand View Research, and India and US based market research company puts the numbers at $3.91 billion in 2023 and $7.22 billion in 2030. There are some other estimates that peg the
On social media platforms, there are any number of self-proclaimed experts who offer advice to gullible Indian athletes on ‘safe’ supplements. Worse, they are importing and making available supplements to sportspersons. NADA must initiate a ruthless crackdown on such unregulated importers and distributors who make available what may be dubious products.
Until some of these unscrupulous elements are brought to book, incidence of doping in Indian sport will continue to rise. Sadly, India has continued to ignore the wake up calls that the statistics deliver frequently. It needs to go beyond paying lip service to tackling the issue at the ground level to prevent it from gnawing away at the sports ecosystem.
