The Drip-Dope-Drip Irrigation System

I have been fighting a guilty officialdom for years. During a debate on television a few days ago, R.K. Anand, counsel for the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), said I was motivated in making allegations against his client. I do indeed have my motives: first, to get some revenge against officials who treat athletes worse than domestic helps; second, to clean sports of drug use.

The Sports Authority of India (SAI) laboratory, established in 1991, conducted about 15,000 tests on athletes from that year to September 2008, of which about 750-800 reported positive for banned drugs. Only about 150 were punished. Back in 2001 itself, I had filed a PIL in the Delhi High Court, seeking the names of athletes who tested positive but went unpunished. In fact, the lab had sent 140 such names to different sports federations in 2000, and 301 in 2009. When a list was submitted in sealed envelopes to the court, it passed them on to the disciplinary panel of the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) in December 2009 seeking action.

The avowed aim with which the SAI lab was set up is to check doping. The first doping violation was recorded in 1993. But by 1994, the crooks—officials in SAI, IOA and government—had banded together. Harbouring a misplaced notion of national pride (and personal gain), they encouraged doping. A coach could get an award, an athlete could win medals and money, the officials could bask in their achievements and enjoy trips abroad at public expense.

By 1996, they had mastered the art of screening athletes before big competitions, in which typically 200-300 Indian athletes participate. Rules require banning athletes caught in these tests. But why did they punish only 150 and spare the rest? The answer: the ones punished had no one to save them. If they had been in a position to bribe officials or provide them any service, they too would have been saved. Now, some officials offer a new explanation: the others weren’t punished because the SAI lab was not accredited with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which was established in 1999. So why did they then tell athletes to get their samples tested by the SAI lab? Why did they punish some 150 athletes then if the lab hadn’t been accredited in the years when the tests were conducted? Because, since state agencies like SAI, individual federations and government officials pooled their resources to suck athletes into doping, doping would then have to deemed an action of the state. From 1993, there has been no space for clean athletes and those who speak up—they were all hounded out. Almost all officials have been complicit in this.

Fortunately, evidence exists to bring the officials to book. The evidence, the names of the athletes who tested positive and, criminally, not acted upon, is with NADA’s disciplinary panel. This panel must take appropriate action, sending notices to athletes named in the list. They have to be given a chance to explain. Their explanation would nail the officials. They’d ask: “Why are you giving me a notice after so long? Ask my federation superiors why I wasn’t given this notice earlier. Two, where is my B-sample? I want it tested, it’s my right. If it’s lost, tampered with or allowed to rot, officials have acted irresponsibly.” They will say this because the notice has to be given in a reasonable period of time, which is internationally accepted as a fortnight. But the federations haven’t done it for up to 18 years, an act of massive misconduct. The athletes have the ball in their court. It’s their chance to take revenge for the indignities they’ve suffered at the hands of officials. WADA, IOA, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and international sports bodies have the right to attend the hearings of the disciplinary panel as observers. WADA can ask sports federations why no action was taken on hundreds of positive results, and why it or the IOC was not informed.

Young athletes didn’t start doping on their own. They were told to take banned drugs. Young, often poor and from a rural background, they had little choice. They were told drugs were like medicines or tonics, to make them stronger. They have greater knowledge now, but many still take drugs willingly. There’s pressure from officials, but there are rewards as well. Poor Ashwini Akkunji, who was awarded Rs 1 crore after her show at the Commonwealth and Asian Games last year, has been left to fend for herself after she tested positive recently. But when she came into sport, I’m certain she knew nothing about drugs. Clearly, sports officials, federations, coaches, managers gave her drugs.

The situation deteriorated after 2000. National camp athletes told me that almost everyone was on drugs. A high-jumper told me that at camps, they stood in a line to get drugs injected. Why do so many athletes take Liv-52? It’s because the use of anabolic steroids causes liver damage. Coaches, however, don’t tell athletes the long-term deleterious effects of using anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancers. This isn’t to say that athletes don’t take drugs willingly. A chemist who runs a shop near a camp venue once told me how two weightlifters bought veterinary drugs from him for their own use! When such athletes are caught, they blame it on contaminated food supplements. Apart from losing face, they have to lie because even possession of many doping drugs is a criminal act. They can lose their jobs, even land in jail.

Officials try to crush whistle-blowers like me. As a marathoner, I was lucky not to be at the whims of the officials. That’s because big marathon events—for example, the Boston marathon—are run independent of national associations. You can participate in these on your own. But then, I had to join the national camp in 1989 because you could be selected for international competitions like the Asian Games or the Olympics only if you attended national camps. I did not see anything wrong at that time, didn’t hear any rumours about drugs. It seemed clean. Things changed in the early 1990s, when we started getting Russian coaches. Lab doctors and athletes now began to talk about drug use. They’d say things like, “He’s done so much drug use, now his kidney is affected”.

Realising that marathoners were getting out of the control of officials, athletics federation chief Lalit Kumar Bhanot, currently in jail, would first deny me a no-objection certificate and then write to marathon organisers that I shouldn’t be allowed to participate because I didn’t have the certificate. Since the organisers never implemented this rule seriously, I was able to run in all marathons except one in Singapore.

I have represented India officially only twice in my career—in the Asian marathon and the World Championships of 1991. My fight with the federations started way back in 1998. It still continues. I ran the Boston marathon in 1985. I was an eminent international marathoner from 1989 to 2006. I completed 76 marathons and 123 half-marathons. I won 25 golds, 12 silvers and 13 bronzes in 26 countries and more than 200 international races. All this without any help from the government because officials like Suresh Kalmadi and Bhanot never took up my case with the ministry.

The sports ministry has appointed Justice Mukul Mudgal to probe the doping fiasco. He has said that Kalmadi and Bhanot, who are in jail, may be questioned in this matter. Everyone who was part of the scandal must be handed exemplary punishment, including—and especially—the officials. Maybe it is retribution time. Maybe some sort of justice that is possible at this stage will prevail. But it’s sad that a generation of sportspersons stands compromised, thanks to the rogue bosses in our sports bodies.

(The writer is a prominent long-distance runner. She was the Asian marathon champion in 1992.)