Shivpal Singh banned for four years after failing dope test

Indian javelin thrower and Tokyo Olympian Shivpal Singh has been banned for four years after failing to prove his innocence in a dope test in October last year.

Shivpal was provisionally suspended and will now undergo a four-year ban. The former Asian Championship medalist is only the second Indian javelin thrower to breach the 85m mark after ace Indian athlete Neeraj Chopra.

According to sources, he failed an out-of-competition dope test post the Tokyo Olympics, after his blood samples returned positive for metandieonone. He was subsequently dropped from the athletics national camp earlier this year.

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Shivpal Singh's ban period commenced from October 21, 2021. All results and medals won by the javelin thrower from the period of testing positive will be forfeited.

His personal best throw is 86.23m, achieved at the 2019 Asian Championships in Doha. He qualified for the Tokyo Olympics with a throw of 85.47m.

Dope tests to be very regular: Federation

Adille Sumariwala, president of the Indian Olympic Association, is leaving no stone unturned as the federation has made it clear that they will come hard on the menace of doping with increased dope tests.

Doping isn’t widespread at the grassroots level in India, but elite Indian athletes too have been under the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) scanner.

Sumariwala had said that the IOA has zero tolerance towards doping. Addressing reporters, he said:

“Before I became the president, we used to test 120 samples a year. We are currently testing close to 1,500 samples. The idea is that the more athletes get tested, the more they will get caught. Our idea is to catch more people."

The IOA president reiterated that the core group of athletes in the camp don’t take performance enhancing drugs, but they cannot completely monitor athletes outside the national camps. He added that athletes who are part of national camps will undergo dope tests very regularly.