Anjali Devi, Karanveer Singh among extensive list of top Indian athletes to fail dope tests

The doping menace has returned to haunt the Indian sporting fraternity as many athletes, from National inter-state women's 400m champion quartermiler Anjali Devi to shot putter Karanveer Singh, have failed dope tests.

The two were also pulled out of the Asian Athletics Championship currently underway in Bangkok where India have already won plenty of medals.

This comes to light a day after the National Anti-Doping Agency issued a notice to ace Indian wrestler Vinesh Phogat for "apparent failure" to comply with the whereabouts requirements of the Anti-Doping Rules while giving her two weeks to respond.

Among others, the list of athletes failing dope tests also include last year's Federation Cup gold medallist discus thrower Kirpal Singh and 2020 National women's 59kg champion lifter Erra Deexitha.

The PTI is in possession of the list of athletes provisionally suspended with effect from January 1, 2023.

As per the list of the suspended athletes from different sports, Anjali has tested positive for GW1516. Kirpal has returned a positive result for stanozolol, while Karanveer was found to positive for methandienone and SARMS enobosarm.

The list also has the names of national youth women's 45kg champion lifter Anjali Patel, Khelo India University Games light single scull champion rower Malak Singh, some judokas, and many from bodybuilding and powerlifting.

As far as Vinesh is concerned, she was one of the prominent faces of the protest against Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who has been accused of sexual harassment by the grapplers. Three failures in a year is considered a violation of ant-doping rules.

Vinesh is returning to competitive wrestling with the Budapest Ranking Series.

List of athletes provisionally suspended from various sports Athletics: Sujit Tikode (banned substance: stanozolol), Ruhi Bhora (GW1516), Ankit (drostanolone), Arathi R. (drostanolone), Himani Chandel (drostanolone), Karanveer Singh (methandienone, SARMS enobosarm), Kirpal Singh (stanozolol), Anjali Devi (GW1516) Para-athletics: Rahul (SARMS LGD-4033), Ranjeet Bhati (dehydrochloromethyl-testosterone) Judo: Akshay (methandienone), Anil (stanozolol), Hardeep Singh Brar (SARMS LGD-4033, SARMS enobosarm), Mohsin Gulab Ali (SARMS enobosarm), Rahul Sevta (oxandrolone; stanozolol) Kabaddi: Rohit Singh Tomar (metandienone), Durgesh Kumar (metandienone) Rowing: Malak Singh (mephentermine) Weightlifting: Gursajan Singh (SARMS LGD-4033, mephentermine, drostanolone), Erra Deexitha (drostanolone), Ashwani (dehydrochloromethyl-testosterone), Anjali Patel (mephentermine).

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