CHENNAI: Long -Distance runner Sanjivani Jadhav, who tested positive for a masking agent, was handed a two-year ban by an Athletics Integrity Unit tribunal on Thursday. All her results after June 29, 2018 were also annulled, meaning she will lose the 10,000m bronze that she won at the Asian Athletics Championships in Doha.
“This constitutes the Athlete’s first Anti-Doping Rule Violation under the ADR,” the judgement said. Two samples had been taken from Sanjivani, one at the TCS World 10k run in Bengaluru and the National Inter-State Athletics in Guwahati, last year. Both samples had tested for traces of probenecid, a masking agent included in WADA’s specified substances list.
“On 29 November 2018, the athlete sent her explanation to the AIU, which provided that she was surprised about the results from analysis of the samples and that she had not, to the best of her knowledge, taken probenecid. The athlete confirmed that she had not used any additional supplements or substances than those disclosed on her doping control forms,” the judgement said. Sanjivani later argued that the contamination could have been caused by ayurvedic medicines that she was using at the time of sample collection.
This argument though was rejected by the tribunal. Sanjivani requested that the AIU give her a reduced sentence considering that the concentration of probenecid found in her samples was low, it could not have been used to mask anything, and that none of her supplements revealed traces of that substance. However, the AIU rejected these arguments. The 23-year-old has to wait only eleven months to get back to competition as her ban started on June 29, 2018.
Asiad medal likely for Anu
India hurdler Anu Raghavan is set to be awarded the bronze medal at 400m hurdles event at the 2018 Asian Games after gold medal winner Oluwakemi Adekoya of Bahrain was stripped of her medal by a disciplinary tribunal.
Adekoya had tested positive for stanozolol when she was tested during the Games and was handed a four-year ban. This means that Anu, who finished fourth in the event, will receive a bronze. India’s 4x400 mixed relay team, who finished second, will likely now get a gold because Adekoya was part of the gold-winning Bahrain team.