NEW DELHI: India may be a featherweight when it comes to its standing in global sport, but in terms of doping violations, it has only Russia (167) and Italy (157) ahead of it in the “rankings”.
An uptick in the number of offenders has taken India into the top-three of the world’s biggest doping violators in a WADA report detailing the transgressions for the year 2019, with bodybuilding, weightlifting and athletics contributing largely to the country’s embarrassing record, PTI reports.
In the latest report published by the World Anti-Doping Agency, 152 (17% of the world total) anti-doping rule violations (ADRVs) were reported in India in 2019, placing it third in the list, with the maximum offenders coming from bodybuilding (57).
Among Olympics sports, weightlifting leads the way with 25 ADRVs, followed by athletics (20) and wrestling (10). Boxing and judo reported four each. Four cricketers were also found to have committed ADRVs in 2019.
For the record, Brazil (78) came in fourth and Iran (70) was fifth on the WADA doping violations list.
