5% Indian athletes among blood dope offenders: Reports

The reports, which claimed that leaked results from 12,000 blood tests on 5,000 competitors by International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), showed the wide extent of cheating in the sport. The results came from an IAAF database leaked to German television channel ARD and reported by Britain’s ‘Sunday Times’.

Two eminent experts concluded from the results that 800 athletes in disciplines from 800m to the marathon registered values considered suspicious or highly suspicious. They also said the analysis of the blood levels of the medal-winners at World Championships and Olympics between 2001 and 2012 indicated a third of athletics medals were won by competitors who had given suspicious tests, according to these reports.

The ‘Sunday Times’ report cited India among countries under suspicion of blood doping, saying that five <g data-gr-id="28">per cent</g> of the 12,000 blood samples which returned “abnormal blood tests” were from Indians. One Indian expert said that blood doping in India could be possible as erythropoietin (EPO) is available in India and athletes might have used it, if at all the reports are to be true.

“I don’t know whether these reports about Indian athletes would have been true or not. But at the same time, you cannot rule out blood doping in India as EPO is available in the market,” Sports Medicine expert P SM Chandran said.

“Blood doping can be in two ways. Earlier, it was done through transfusion of one’s own blood. An athlete withdraws his own blood, stores it at freeze point and re-infuses it before <g data-gr-id="34">competition</g>. Now, the latest is the easier one, that is by injecting banned substance erythropoietin. This EPO is available in India and so you can’t ruled out blood doping in India,” he added.

The officials of AFI and NADA did not respond even after repeated attempts.