Mumbai: Six Indian women athletes, including Asian Games double gold medallist Ashwini Akkunji, have been given one-year suspensions after testing positive for banned anabolic steroids earlier this year.
India's 400 metre runners Akkunji, Jauna Murmu, Mandeep Kaur, Priyanka Panwar, Sini Jose and Tiana Mary Thomas were found guilty in June and July and were provisionally suspended by the National Anti Doping Agency (Nada).
All six athletes had tested positive for methandienone, while Thomas and Kaur's samples also featured the banned steroid stanozolol.
The one-year bans will be effective from the date of the athletes' provisional suspension, a Nada disciplinary panel, chaired by Dinesh Dayal, ruled on Friday.
With next year's Olympic Games starting on July 27, the suspensions are likely to rule the athletes out of the prestigious event in London. Akkunji and her team mates had not taken the banned drugs intentionally so were given a reduced sentence, the disciplinary panel ruled.
"We did not find any significant fault on the part of these athletes on how the banned substances entered their bodies and they will get reduced penalty," Dayal said.
Akkunji, Kaur and Jose were part of India's 4x400 metres relay team that last year won gold at the Delhi Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games in Guangzhou, China. Akkunji also won the 400 metre hurdles in Guangzhou. Also given a suspension was Harikrishanan Muraleedharan. The male long-jumper had tested positive for methandienone and was suspended for two years.
