India’s first Asian Games gold-winning heptathlete Swapna Barman has been provisionally suspended by the National Anti Doping Agency (NADA) after testing positive for a banned substance and disciplinary proceedings against her will go ahead despite her recent decision to retire. The 29-year-old has tested positive for banned anabolic-androgenic steroid Boldenone. Her name figures in the NADA’s latest list of provisionally suspended athletes. “The due procedure will be followed and she stands provisionally suspended despite her retirement. She will have to appear for a hearing and can seek a B sample test,” a well-placed source in the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) told PTI.
“If she decides to come out of retirement at any point in her life, all sanctions against her will stand in case she is found guilty in the formal hearing, a ban will be imposed. A retirement announcement does not absolve anyone of doping offences,” the source added.
Apart from Barman’s provisional suspension, hockey player Mayank Sharma was banned for four years for failing an out of competition test last year.
In addition, 19-year-old runner Sanjana Singh, who won a gold in the women’s 1500m and 5000m races in the SAAF Senior Athletics Championships last year, was handed a five-year ban after testing positive for prohibited steroids last year.
Both Mayank and Sanjana were already serving provisional suspensions.
But Barman was the biggest name to emerge in the latest list of sanctions. She was the first Indian heptathlete to clinch gold at the Asiad when she finished on top in the 2018 Jakarta Games.
She announced her retirement at the beginning of this month, stating that her injury-plagued body could no longer take the rigours of competition.
Boldenone is known to decrease testosterone levels and has no medicinal use for the human body.
In Barman’s case, it was detected through the Gas Chromatography-Combustion-Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry, which is an advanced analytical technique to distinguish natural hormones from the synthetic ones.
A former Asian champion, who was born with six toes in each of her foot, Barman also represented India in the 2016 Olympic Games.
But her moment of glory was the Asiad gold following which sportswear brands came up with customised shoes for her.
Barman had famously complained that having to squeeze her feet in the standard shoes meant for five toes had left her with blisters.
Barman, who grew up in extreme poverty in Ghospara village near Jalpaiguri in West Bengal, dabbled in politics recently when she fought and lost the state assembly elections on a Trinamool Congress ticket.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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