The National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) on Sunday provisionally banned Olympic medalist Bajrang Punia for failing to provide samples. Bajrang’s suspension was withdrawn by a disciplinary panel after he was not issued a charge notice. However, now that NADA has released the same, the suspension has been applied.
On March 10, during his selection trials for the men’s national team for the Asian Qualifiers in Sonepat, he was placed on provisional suspension for refusing to give his sample to the NADA.
Bajrang declined to compete in the 3rd–4th place bout and had also walked off the venue without giving his urine sample after losing the previous encounter.
“The latest order was issued by NADA on Thursday, and he has been asked to respond to the latest suspension by July 11,” said media reports.
Punia also claimed that a dope-collecting officer attempted to collect the samples using outdated kits and hence refused.
Taking to X (formally Twitter), he stated, “This is to clarify that, I have at no stage refused to give my sample for doping control. On 10 March 2024, when I was approached by alleged doping control officials, I merely reminded them that the last two times they came to collect my sample, they had gotten expired kits once and on the other instance, they had approached me with a single testing kit as opposed to the three testing kits.”
“I then sought an answer from them as the NADA did not provide an answer to any of my communications demanding an explanation for the same and informed them that I would give my sample upon receiving such explanation from them. Not only did the doping control officials refuse to provide an explanation, they did not provide me any proof on this instance of them carrying proper equipment and merely left from the venue where i was at, claiming it to be a refusal from my end,” he added.
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