An athletics meet turned farcical when doping testers turned up – with only one 100m finalist left to race.
The final day of the Delhi State Athletics Championship descended into chaos on Tuesday (September 26) when officials from India's anti-doping agency (NADA) arrived at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. They were responding to a video which had gone viral 24 hours earlier.
It showed a bathroom inside the stadium covered with syringes and packets of performance-enhancing drug Erythropoietin (EPO). As news of their unannounced visit spread, roughly 50% of the competitors pulled out so they couldn't be tested.
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Seven of the eight sprinters who had qualified for the 100m showdown withdrew complaining of cramp or muscle strains – leaving just Lalit Kumar at the starting blocks.
“I was really looking forward to running against the best athletes, but nobody turned up,” he bemoaned to the Indian Express. “Everyone was scared of getting tested. As an athlete, I feel very hurt and let down.”
If that wasn't bad enough, the outlet also reported that a girl in the junior steeplechase kept running after crossing the finish line, forcing a doping control officer to chase her in order to get a sample.
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Meanwhile, several winners didn't attend the ceremonies to collect their medals so they weren't confronted by NADA officials. The situation was slammed by Sandeep Mehta, secretary of the Delhi Athletics Association.
She told Reuters: "An odd withdrawal is understandable, but when seven runners withdraw, you know something is fishy. There are some throwers as well who disappeared before competition and all of them should be tested by NADA.
"We are sharing with them details of the athletes who fled. If any of them return adverse results, we will ban them in Delhi and will recommend the Athletics Federation of India does the same."
Doping is a widespread issue in India, with a total of 45 of their athletes having been suspended this year. The World Anti-Doping Agency rank the country second in the number of violations, behind only Russia.
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