National Anti-doping Agency’s notice to wrestler Vinesh Phogat seeks response in two weeks
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New Delhi: The wrestler Vinesh Phogat, who was among the wresters protesting against Brij Bhushan over sexual assault allegations, received a notice from the National Anti-Doping agency seeking the reasons for not complying with its rules.
The agency pointed out that Phogat’s ‘ apparent failure’ to furnish whereabouts requirements and gave her two weeks to furnish reasons or accept failure.
The Asian Games champion is to be returning to arena at the Budapest Ranking Series 2023 starting from Thursday, NDTV reported citing Olympics.com.
The NADA notice said it was notifying Phogat’s failure to comply with the ADR’s whereabouts requirements.
The notice invited her to supply reasons before a final decision on the matter is made, alongside alerting her to read the letter carefully ‘as it may have serious consequences for you’.
‘By email dated 08-March-2022 & 12-December-2022, we advised you that you have been included in our Registered Testing Pool, and therefore that under the ADR you are required to make a whereabouts filing at the beginning of each quarter, providing certain specified information about your whereabouts each day in the forthcoming quarter, and are further required to be available for testing at those declared whereabouts, in accordance with the International Standard for Result Management (ISRM) Article B.2.4,’ NDTV quoted the notice as stating.
The notice said that Doping Control Officers ("DCOs") were unable to locate her at Sonipat, Haryana where she had declared to be available on June 27 at 10.00PM for test.
‘We sent Doping Control Officers ("DCOs") to test you on that day at that time and place. However, the DCO was unable to locate you for testing as you were not available at the given location,’ the notice said, adding that she has committed a ‘whereabouts failure under the ADR’.
Vinesh was asked to respond with 14 days and accept Whereabouts failure or supply her reasons if she had not failed.
The notice further said: ‘one Whereabouts Failure (whether a filing failure or missed test) does not on its own constitute an anti-doping rule violation (ADRV) under ADR. Instead, there should be three Whereabouts Failures within a 12-month period for that.’