9 Khelo India athletes fail drug tests, number may rise

In the 2018 Khelo India Youth Games, NADA found 12 athletes guilty of failing dope test.

Hyderabad: In a massive development nine young athletes, who participated in the 2019 Khelo India Youth Games, have been found positive as they used banned substances to enhance their performances at the Sports Ministry's flagship event, national media reported.

At the same time, it is learnt that the number could rise. No doubt, it is a big setback to the government's objective to make India a sporting nation as the Narendra Modi led government launched this sporting extravaganza in 2018 with a lot of expectations.

The samples of these nine athletes had been taken during the 2019 Khelo India Youth Games which happened in January-February.

Earlier, six athletes-three belong to wrestling while rest of them hail from track and field, archery and weightlifting – had tested positive two weeks back.

“We carried out 476 tests during the Khelo India Youth Games this year, out of which results for 466 have come. We are waiting for 10 more reports. Out of the 466, nine athletes have failed the tests so far,” Navin Agarwal, the director general of National Anti-Doping Agency (Nada) said.

The tests were conducted at the National Dope Testing Laboratory (NDTL), NADA's official drug testing laboratory.

In the meantime, a weightlifter, a judoka and a swimmer’s samples have now tested positive

• Wrestlers used peptide hormone to enhance their performance. It is understood that the hormone increases muscle growth and strength. At the same time, it also helps them in producing red blood cells to improve the blood’s ability to carry oxygen.
• The judoka has been found using banned Beta 2 agonist which is known as muscle relaxants. On the other hand, the swimmer has been found using archaic anabolic steroids, which is in general used by athletes to boost performance.

During the first round of dope results, athletes had failed for banned substances that help suppress estrogen (the primary female sex hormone) and increase testosterone (the primary male sex hormone) production, drugs that boost oxygen in the blood, masking agents, stimulants and anabolic steroids.