Uttarakhand Cricketer Fails Dope Test; TN Sprinter Dhanalakshmi Receives Eight-year Ban

Hyderabad: Tamil Nadu sprinter S. Dhanalakshmi has been handed an eight-year ban for her second doping offence, according to a decision taken by a National Anti-Doping Agency Disciplinary Panel on December 30. The 27-year-old athlete returned to the action last year after already serving a suspension and clocked her personal best of 11.36 to emerge triumphant at the women’s 100m at the National Inter-state meet in Chennai in August after testing positive for drostanolone.

Her sample for the dope test was collected at the Indian Open meet in July, held at Sangrur. Further, she was suspended after testing positive in the dope test after anabolic steroid Drostanolone was found in her sample. Her eight-year ban will commence from September 19 last year.

Notably, Dhanalakshmi was returning to the action after facing a three-year ban after testing positive in the dope test in 2022. However, her second offence means that he will have to stay out of the action for eight more years.

Left-arm seamer from Uttarakhand Ranjan Kumar has also failed a dope test. He has been handed a provisional suspension. His sample was found to include anabolic steroids Drostanolone and Metenolone, as well as Clomifene. It is generally used to treat infertility in women, but is also useful in restoring testosterone levels among men.

It is a rare case of a cricketer failing in dope test. Madhya Pradesh all-rounder Anshula Rao was caught for doping in 2020, while Prithvi Shaw suffered a similar fate in 2019.

Nongmaithem Ratanbala Devi also became one of the rare footballers to fail the dope test. She has also figured in the latest updated list of athletes who were handed provisional suspensions by NADA. Others in the list are Gaurav Patel (athletics), Khushboo Kumari (weightlifting), Achalveer Karwasra (boxing) and Siddhant Sharma (polo).