The best thing to have come out of the nabbing of a group of dope-tainted wrestlers and athletes earlier this week is the message that drug cheats will not have it easy at the forthcoming Commonwealth Games here next month. Six wrestlers and two athletes were snagged by the National Anti-Doping Agency at various camps and
competitions, once again underlining the need for constant and unceasing vigil against performance-enhancing substances that seem to crop up in new avatars almost as fast as methods of detecting them are found. It was also vindication of the strong stand taken against performance-enhancers first by the World Anti-Doping Agency, and now its Indian chapter, which has shown that at least one aspect of the much-maligned infrastructure for the CWG appears to be in place and ready. At the same time, the tragedy is that one of the six grapplers caught, Rajiv Tomar, was at Rashtrapati Bhavan not a week ago to receive his Arjuna Award, which symbolises a nation’s recognition of a sportsperson’s prowess and achievements. That such an achiever should be found to have clay feet is clear warning that the line between right and wrong has been so systematically blurred, that the battle against cheating is becoming an uphill climb. For starters, and this is even as he is providing a “B” sample to confirm whether or not the banned substance Methyl-hexane amine was actually in his sample, Tomar should have his Arjuna Award taken away. A national award as prestigious as the Arjuna cannot have such a taint associated with it and continue to be something to strive for. It not only has to be clean, it must also be seen to be clean, and the irony of a suspected dope cheat standing under the national flag with the anthem sounding makes this starkly clear. There is yet more irony here in that just before this scandal erupted, the Organising Committee of the Delhi Games had helped pay off a hefty fine slapped on the Indian Weightlifting Federation by the international body for repeated drug-related violations in the past.
The OC’s move will enable a large contingent of lifters to participate in the CWG — and will also bring back a few nightmares. It was at a Commonwealth Games 28 years ago that an Indian lifter was named for the first time at a major event. Subroto Pal’s name may have slipped into obscurity but even today he casts a long shadow and many of Indian weightlifting’s trials and tribulations as being frequent dope offenders at the international level may be traced to his door even though Pal was flown back from Auckland, New Zealand, in disgrace. With the skeletons starting to tumble out of the cupboard, therefore, IWF administrators will be praying that no further fingers are pointed their way for another infringement now will see Indian lifters on the sidelines for a very long time indeed. The scandal will also have been a heads-up for all the other federations to make sure their respective teams for this CWG are absolutely clean. India are also carrying the burden of being hosts and it is therefore incumbent upon the Indian Olympic Association and its affiliated federations participating in the Games to make sure that there is not even the shadow of a taint around their teams. That is as it should be, and for those interested in seeing a clean Games, NADA’s decision to go public quickly will be a welcome step. It has sounded an early warning, and those associations and federations who have any doubts about any of their competitors will now be forced to act — and quickly — to avoid further embarrassment and scandal.