NADA bans coach Rakesh Kumar for life; powerlifter Gaurav Vats provisionally suspended
Athletics coach Rakesh Kumar was banned for life by the National Anti-Doping Agency in its latest list of sanctions here on Wednesday for administering prohibited substances. Powerlifter Gaurav Vats was provisionally suspended on charges of possession and trafficking of banned drugs.
Rakesh had been suspended in March last year and NADA has made his life ban effective from that period. National Inter-State bronze-winning sprinter Prakruthi Roopa Rao has been provisionally suspended after testing positive for the banned steroids Stanozolol and Drostanolone. Khelo India Games gold medal-winning weightlifter Chelsi received a five-year ban for failing a dope test, and a minor weightlifter was provisionally suspended after testing positive for Oxandrolone. In total, seven names from athletics appear on the provisionally suspended list.
Vats’s nutritional supplements company premises were central to the crackdown that led to his provisional suspension. In April, a tipoff from NADA’s Intelligence & Investigations (I&I) unit prompted a raid and confiscations at his company premises in Najafgarh as part of a joint operation that included the local police. NADA named possession and trafficking of banned drugs as the basis for Vats’s provisional suspension.
The joint task force conducting the April operation was led by Central Food Safety Officers (CFSOs) and included officials from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). During the operation, authorities recovered approximately 2,800 capsules/tablets and 11 injectable units of prohibited substances. Among the injectable and oral anabolic agents seized were Methenolone Enanthate, Trenbolone and Stanozolol.
Investigators also recovered 300 Methandienone tablets, 850 Oxandrolone tablets and 1,500 Selective Androgen Receptor Modulator (SARMs) capsules. Injections of Adenosine Monophosphate, described by NADA as a prohibited hormone and metabolic modulator that helps endurance, were among the other items seized.
All these substances are steroids banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) as they can be abused for building muscle mass to gain unfair performance advantage. Quartermiler Kaushal Kumar, steeplechaser Jujhar Singh and long-distance runner Baljeet Kaur were also named among those provisionally suspended as doping continued to cast a shadow on Indian athletics.
The actions form part of the sanctions published by NADA in its latest list of penalties on Wednesday. Rakesh Kumar’s life ban is recorded as effective from the March suspension last year.