Star sprinter Dutee Chand handed provisional suspension after testing positive for prohibitive substances

 

Indian sprinter Dutee Chand was handed a provisional suspension on Wednesday after testing positive for using prohibitive substances. Chand was tested positive for using Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators (SARMs). The sample was collected out-of-competition on December 5 last year at Bhubaneswar.

The sprinter currently holds the national record in 100m sprint and along with Dhanalakshmi Sekar, Hima Das and Archana Suseendran, she is also part of the quartet who hold the 4*100m relay sprint national record. This ban will also mean that Chand will not be able to compete in the 2023 Asian Games in China which was postponed from 2022 due to the pandemic.

In a letter addressed to Dutee, the AAF notification said, ‘I do hereby inform you that your sample A was tested at the NDTL (National Dope Testing Laboratory) in accordance with the procedure set out in WADA’s (World Anti-Doping Agency) International Standard of Laboratories and was returned adverse analytical findings as details given below’. The letter also warned Dutee about the potential consequences. ‘I do hereby invite you to carefully read the contents of this letter which provides important information as to the potential consequences of the AAF and resulting disciplinary process’, the letter added.

However, Chand denied that she had received this notification by the world body and said that she had been competing for a long time at the highest level and that she had never used a banned substance. ‘I have been competing at the highest level for almost a decade and I have never touched or used any kind of performance enhancing drugs. I have given my samples whenever asked. In 2014 I had to fight for my right to run due the hyperandrogenism case and now this has come up. I’ll have to see the letter first to tell you what my next step will be’, Dutee told the Indian Express. ‘I haven’t received any letter from doping agencies or federation yet. I only got to know through media people that a letter is being circulated on social media’, she added