Athletes give strange excuses after failing dope tests

KARACHI: The country’s athletes come up with strange excuses after failing doping tests and a classic example in this regard was of Nasir Iqbal.

Nasir, who faced a 4-year ban by the World Anti-Doping Agency for failing a dope test during the South Asian Games in Guwahati, India in 2016, blamed high quantities of meat he consumed at that time.

His first sample showed the presence of 19-norandrosterone (19-NA) in a concentration of 3.8 ng/ml. The 19-NA is an anabolic-androgenic steroid prohibited according to WADA's 2016 List of Prohibited Substances and Methods and a 19-NA finding above 2 ng/ml must be reported.

Later, an IRMS (Isotope-Ratio Mass Spectrometry) analysis of Nasir’s second sample was performed by the New Delhi WADA-accredited laboratory which returned a positive result for 19-NA in a concentration of 1.8 ng/ml.

Nasir first denied charges by stating that he did not act intentionally but later acknowledged to have committed an anti-doping rule violation.

In 2017, Nasir in front of a panel of the Court Of Arbitration For Sport (CAS) put the blame on high quantities of meat he consumed in Pakistan and India before participation in the event.

He stated that in his home country (Pakistan) the use of hormones such as Bovine Growth Hormone was customary so the contaminated meat was the cause of his Adverse Analytical Finding (AAF)”.

But his novel excuse was rejected by the CAS panel. “His excuse was not accepted by the panel and it was an unsubstantial one,” said Dr Waqar, WADA’s representative in Pakistan, when contacted.