Six Indian women athletes, including Asian Games double gold medallist Ashwini Akkunji, have been given one-year postponement after testing positive for ineligible anabolic steroids earlier this year.
India's 400 metre runners Akkunji, Jauna Murmu, Mandeep Kaur, Priyanka Panwar, Sini Jose and Tiana Mary Thomas were found guilty in June and July and were conditionally suspended by the National Anti Doping Agency (NADA).
All six athletes had tested positive for methandienone, while Thomas and Kaur's samples also featured the disqualified steroid stanozolol. The one-year bans will be effective from the date of the athletes' temporary suspension, a NADA corrective panel, chaired by Dinesh Dayal, ruled on Friday.
With next year's Olympic Games starting on July 27, the suspensions are likely to rule the athletes out of the prestigious event in London. Akkunji and her team mates had not taken the banned drugs deliberately so were given a reduced sentence, the disciplinary panel ruled.
We did not find any important fault on the part of these athletes on how the banned substances entered their bodies and they will get condensed penalty,Dayal said. Akkunji, Kaur and Jose were part of India's 4x400m relay team that last year won gold at the Delhi Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games in Guangzhou, China. Akkunji also won the 400m hurdle in Guangzhou.
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