NADA provisionally suspends Mohammad Yunus Khan, former coach of Gulveer Singh

Mohammad Yunus Khan, a middle- and long-distance coach at the Army Sports Institute in Pune who worked with runner Gulveer Singh, was provisionally suspended by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) on October 13, 2026, and has been charged under Article 2.9 of the NADA Rules for alleged intentional complicity in an anti-doping rule violation; the specific allegation has not been disclosed.

Khan, a former national-level distance runner who moved into coaching, guided Gulveer during his formative years after spotting him at a cross-country race in Arunachal Pradesh in 2021. Gulveer joined the Indian Army in 2018 and received Khan’s early guidance at elite level. Khan also worked with Kartik Kumar and marathon runner Sawan Barwal while based at the ASI in Pune.

NADA has concurrently issued provisional suspensions to seven track and field athletes — hammer thrower Samir Deshmukh, 800m runners Aditya Patial and Shiva Tomar, 400m runner Mehardeep Kaur, 1,500m runner Sakir, javelin thrower Amit Majumdar and shot putter Rahul — in cases the agency says are mostly linked to alleged steroid doping. Three wrestlers, Sushant Ambaji Tambulkar, Avinash and Chirag, and two weightlifters, Bhawana and a minor, have also been provisionally suspended by NADA.

Gulveer has since set multiple national records and was a medallist at the recent Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, taking silver in both the 1,500m and 10,000m and bronze in the 5,000m. He had previously won bronze in the 10,000m at the 2022 Asian Games. In 2024 Gulveer relocated to Colorado Springs to train under Scott Simmons and has spent much of his time training abroad.

Khan is credited with identifying and developing Kartik Kumar, who won silver in the 10,000m at the 2022 Asian Games; Kartik accepted a three-year ban from the United States Anti-Doping Agency in November 2025 after testing positive for several prohibited anabolic agents in out-of-competition tests. Khan also coached Sawan Barwal at the ASI during his formative years and was among those who advised Barwal to switch to the marathon.

Barwal broke Shivnath Singh’s 48-year-old national marathon record in Rotterdam in April and later improved his own mark while winning silver at the Asian Games in Japan, achievements the source attributes to his development under Khan at the ASI.

Khan’s suspension remains provisional and the precise nature of the allegation has not been made public; Article 2.9 of the NADA Rules covers "assisting, encouraging, aiding, abetting, conspiring, covering up or other forms of intentional complicity or attempted complicity in an anti-doping rule violation." The charge does not, by itself, establish that he personally tested positive for a prohibited substance.