IWF cracks whip: Life ban for Shailaja Pujari
Cracking the whip on Indian dope cheats, IWF imposed life ban on Shailaja Pujari and Vicky Butta.
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New Delhi: Repeat offenders Shailaja Pujari and Vicky Butta were slapped with life bans, while four others were barred for four years as the International Weightlifting Federation cracked the whip on Indian dope cheats.
Pujari, a 75kg gold medallist from the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games, had been earlier caught in the doping net
in 2006 and had to be dropped from the Indian team.
This time, she flunked the World Anti-Doping Agency
(WADA) and the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) tests
conducted last September.
Batta, a 56kg silver winner in the 2006 Melbourne
Commonwealth Games, had previously failed a drug test during
the 2007 National Games.
"Both of them have been banned for life for failing dope
tests last year," confirmed a source in the Weightlifting
Federation of India (WFI).
The IWF has also imposed a fine of USD 5000 each on the
duo.
Four other lifters, Harbhajan Singh (Delhi), Rajesh Singh
(Madhya Pradesh), Sunita Rani (Punjab) and A Vijayadevi
(Jharkhand), were banned for four years and fined USD 5,000
each for failing the out-of-competition tests conducted last
year.
India has been embarrassed repeatedly due to dope
offenders in weightlifting and the federation had been banned
in 2004 and 2006, penalised for three or more lifters testing
positive within a calendar year.
The WFI officials had resigned en masse after six lifters
tested positive for banned substances at the Pune national
camp before the World Championships in China last year.
PTI
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