New Delhi, Rio de Janeiro: In a sensational turn of events, Narsingh Yadav was on Monday cleared to compete in the Rio Olympics after being exonerated of doping charges by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA), which ruled that the wrestler was a victim of “sabotage” and deserved the benefit of doubt.
Ending the suspense of the last few days, NADA DG Naveen Agarwal read out a statement clearing Narsingh, leading to wild celebrations among his supporters.
“We kept in mind that in the past, till June 2, none of his samples were positive. It was inconceivable that one-time ingestion would be of benefit. Therefore the panel is of the view that the one-time ingestion was not intentional,” Agarwal said while reading out the verdict.
“The panel concludes that the athlete deserves the benefit of article 10.4 of the NADA’s anti-doping code. Keeping in view that he was victim of a sabotage, the panel exonerates the athlete from charges of anti-doping rules of NADA,” he added.
Narsingh, who had been replaced by Parveen Rana in the Rio-bound squad, was present at the NADA headquarters when the decision was taken on Monday.
But the Wrestling Federation of India Monday said Narsingh would now be brought back into the squad.
The NADA reached the conclusion after three days of marathon hearings last week during which Narsingh’s lawyers argued that the wrestler had been sabotaged by rivals. Narsingh had even filed a police complaint, naming two fellow wrestlers, one of whom is a 17-year-old.
Narsingh had returned positive for methandienone — a banned anabolic steroid, following which he cried foul, claiming that the entire episode was a conspiracy against him.
NADA’s legal team had also given its arguments against the sabotage theory before the disciplinary committee, stating that the responsibility of keeping his system dope free lay with Narsingh.
The panel had summoned two cooks on the request of Narsingh’s lawyer Vidushpat Singhania on Saturday to verify the theory of his food being contaminated.
Earlier, the argument put forth by NADA was that Narsingh was not eligible for remission, which he had been asking for, because he failed to establish that he did not commit any fault or negligence.
In Rio de Janeiro, Indian hockey team’s performance director Roelant Oltmans has complained about poor facilities for both men and women players at the Olympic Village here.
In several e-mails to India’s Chef de Mission Rakesh Gupta on Sunday, Oltmans, also the men’s team chief coach has asked for more tables, chairs and TVs.
“For athletes who have to perform at top-level during a longer period of the Olympics we need proper chairs and tables in the apartments for six persons. Actually there are only two chairs in each apartment,” Oltmans wrote to Gupta.
“For men and women we are using nine apartments, so we lack 28 proper chairs and for seven apartments we need at least one table as well. Spending too much time in bean-chairs might result in back-injuries for the players,” he added.
