CWG silver medallist among three lifters banned for life

Three weightlifters, including Melbourne Commonwealth Games silver medallist Vicky Batta, were slapped with a life ban on Saturday after the Indian federation decided to act tough on drug cheats.

The other lifters who have been handed out the punishment are G Damodaran and Rajesh Kumar Singh of Services as they failed a dope test by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) during the 2009 season — their second such offence.

Damodaran (105kg) and Singh (94kg) first returned positive samples in 2006 during the inter-Services competition in 2006. Batta, meanwhile, was among the nine culprits who had failed a dope test during the Guwahati National games in 2007.

The federation, which has itself been fined by the world body for failing to control the instances of doping, has also imposed a penalty of $5,000 each on the three lifters. Batta, a Punjab Police lifter, will have to shell out an additional $500 for a B sample.

“The federation is very serious on taking strong action on drug offenders. We want to clean up the dope menace. The severe punishment given to the three lifters should set an example for young lifters in the country,” said IWF secretary general Sehdev Yadav.

“It’s the only way to cleanse the system,” he added.

Incidentally, Batta and Singh were handed a four-year ban by the International Weightlifting Federation — till September 2013 — after failing the out of competition WADA tests in September 2009. It led to the IWF executive council resigning and the world body imposing a hefty $500,000 fine on the Indian federation. Shailaja Pujari was handed a life ban by the world body, while the other five were banned for four years. Besides Batta, Pujari and Singh, the other three lifters were Harbhajan Singh, Sunita Rani and Arambam Bijaya Devi.

Recently, 70 lifters did not turn up for competition after sending entries for the senior national championships in Udaipur in January due to fear of being caught for doping as the IWF had conducted large-scale dope testing.