With maximum cases of doping detected in 2019, NADA introduces Athlete Biological Passport programme

New Delhi, Dec 10: Lamenting the most number of dope cases being represented this year, the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) on Tuesday (December 10) claimed it is going to incorporate tests introduced by World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to prevent such cases.

More than 150 athletes failed tests this year though bodybuilders made up more than one-third of this list, the NADA officials informed at an event in the national capital.

Talking to media persons while announcing Bollywood actor Suniel Shetty as the brand ambassador of NADA, its Director General Navin Agarwal also revealed that the anti-doping agency has started Athlete Biological Passport programme that will cover all the sportspersons.

NADA will cover Olympic-bound sportspersons for now under the ambitious programme before extending to other elite, national and state-level athletes.

Agarwal informed that ABP is the monitoring of selected biological parameters over time that may indirectly reveal the effects of doping on the body. This allows anti-doping agencies to generate individual profiles for each athlete through which fluctuations, that may indicate the use of performance-enhancing drugs or methods, would be apparent.

"We have begun an Athlete Biological Passport Programme by using which we can make a longitudinal study of several biological parameters of an athlete's body. By using ABP we can know about doping by an athlete at any time so that we can hand punishments," Agarwal said.

"When an athlete dopes, the parameters change. Some parameters of the body are such that the blood and urine samples can detect the changes later on as the changes remain for a long time," he added.

The ABP programme was devised by anti-doping agencies as a new detection strategy to combat emerging threats arising out of the use of new or modified substances or designer drugs by athletes. Agarwal said the ABP programme was introduced to ensure that no athlete is caught for doping during the Tokyo Olympics and the participants would also be relieved from the hassles of getting another testing done in the showpiece event.

"We are preparing the ABP of all those Tokyo-bound athletes so that nobody is caught for doping there. Moreover, that (ABP) will give the facility to them so that there is no need to do another testing in Tokyo.

"The Olympics is coming up and we have to ensure that no Indian athlete is caught in the dope net during the Olympics and or whosoever uses the prohibited drug before the Olympics is caught before that (Olympics)."

Asked about the cost-effectiveness of the ABP programme as the NADA has been working on a shoe-string budget, he said, "It is cost-effective in the sense that later we will not need to do repeat testing. "We will expand this programme to all the aspiring athletes. We are starting with the Tokyo-bound athletes and it will be done for national and state-level athletes also later on."

The NADA officials also stressed that ignorance could no more be taken as an excuse from the athletes found positive of doping and the culprits will be severely penalised and the reason why they were compelled to appoint Suniel Shetty as the brand ambassador.

"We are talking about professional athletes here and not the ones who are coming from far-flung or remote areas of the country who are completely stranger to doping. Most people get deliberately involved in doping but there have been instances when the athletes were genuinely not aware. That's the reason why we have brought someone like Mr Suniel Shetty on board so that a celebrity like him helps us create awareness towards the adverse effects of doping."

Minister of State for Youth Affairs & Sports, Kiren Rijiju also attended the event as the chief guest and called for a rigorous campaign to bring awareness about doping. He further stated that a sense of clean sports must be inculcated in the players from the very beginning.

Mr Rijiju said that clean sport is the agenda of the government and players must adopt fair practices to achieve success and not resort to foul means like doping which brings a bad name to the country.

Lauding the role of NADA in creating awareness about doping, the minister said that with limited resources NADA is doing commendable work in enlightening players about doping and its ill effects.