Neeraj, Sachin only Indians in World Athletics’ top anti-doping testing list

Sydney: Javelin throwers Neeraj Chopra and Sachin Yadav are the only Indian athletes to figure in the Registered Testing Pool (RTP) of World Athletics’ anti-doping watchdog Athletics Integrity Unit’s (AIU) for the first quarter of this year.

While two-time Olympic medal-winning Chopra has been a regular on this list, Yadav is a new entrant after his fourth-place finish in the World Championships last year.

The Asian Championships silver-medallist outperformed Chopra at the world event where the latter finished eighth due to nagging fitness issues that hampered his performance.

Yadav covered a personal best of 86.27m to not just end up higher than Chopra, but also reigning Olympic champion Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan, who also endured a bad day ending 10th overall.

The 26-year-old from Uttar Pradesh, who is over six feet tall, is being widely seen as the next big thing in Indian javelin throw landscape, dominated completely by Chopra for over half a decade now.

The RTP is highest tier pool of international or national level athletes who undergo no-advance notice testing.

The athletes in this list have to provide details of their whereabouts, including home address, and also specify a 60-minute window each day during which they would be available for testing.

The new RTP list is dominated by athletes from Ethiopia, Kenya and the USA.

In the previous RTP also featured, javelin thrower Kishore Jena, steeplechaser Avinash Sable, woman javelin thrower Annu Rani and long jumpers Murali Sreeshankar and Jeswin Aldrin.

But none of them find a place in the first quarter list of the new year.