Dope-tainted trio flunks ’B’ sample too

Agencies

New Delhi, 09 July 2011: Further bad news arrived for Indian athletes Sini Jose, Joana Murmu and Tiana Mary Thomas on Friday when their ’B’ samples were also reported to have tested positive.

 

The trio had their ’B’ sample tests done at the National Dope Testing Laboratory on Monday and the results, which came on Friday, confirmed their dope flunk.

 

Sini and Joana had tested positive for methandionone while Mary Thomas had another anabolic steroid epimethandiol in her urine sample collected during the June 11-14 National Inter-State Meet in Bangalore.

 

"Sini, Joana and Mary Thomas’ ’B’ sample also tested positive for anabolic steroids. Under procedure they will now appear before a NADA disciplinary panel and if found guilty, their maximum punishment would be two-year ban as it would be their first dope offence," a NADA source told.

 

The news arrived on the heels of Sports Ministry stepping in to relieve foreign coach Yuri Ogorodnik from his services and then sacking three other coaches involved in different disciplines.

 

The Indian government then subsequently appointed Justice (retd) Mukul Mudgal to enquire into all aspects of the fiasco.

 

But, Ogorodnkik reacted to his ouster on Thursday, stating that he didn’t know what happened because the girls only had food supplements. He claimed that he gave them a schedule for food supplements only.

 

Earlier on Wednesday, Punjab police conducted raids and sealed two of the chemist shops outside the campus of National Institute of Sports (NIS) in Patiala after CNN-IBN exposed banned drugs being sold openly by chemists there.

 

However, India’s leading quarter-milers Mandeep Kaur and Joana Murmu, two of the eight athletes to fail the dope test, have pleaded innocence and asked for their vitamin food supplements to be examined which they said were the cause of their returning positive.