Indian Race Walker Bhawna Jat Banned for 16 Months by NADA
New Delhi [India], August 23: Indian race walker Bhawna Jat has been handed a 16-month ban by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) for whereabouts failures. The ban started on August 10, 2023, and will end on December 10, 2024.
The Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel (ADDP) made the decision on July 10, 2024, but it was listed on NADA’s website on Thursday. Bhawna was provisionally suspended in August last year, preventing her from competing at the World Athletics Championships 2023 in Budapest, Hungary.
Each year, NADA selects top Indian athletes for the Registered Testing Pool (RTP), reviewed quarterly. Athletes in the RTP must provide their whereabouts quarterly, including accommodation, training, work, competitions, and other details. Non-compliance is a filing failure. They must also provide a 60-minute time slot for testing, and failure to do so may result in a missed test.
Bhawna, who competed at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and is a former national record holder in the women’s 20km race walk, missed two doping tests in May and June 2023 and had a filing failure in late 2022. She cited technical issues with the mobile application and losing her phone as reasons for the failures.
Doubts Revealed
Race Walker -: A race walker is an athlete who competes in a sport called race walking, where they walk as fast as they can without running.
Banned -: Being banned means that Bhawna Jat is not allowed to compete in any races or events for a certain period of time.
NADA -: NADA stands for National Anti-Doping Agency. It is an organization in India that makes sure athletes do not use drugs to cheat in sports.
Whereabouts failures -: Whereabouts failures happen when an athlete does not tell the agency where they will be for drug tests or misses the tests.
Doping tests -: Doping tests are checks to see if athletes have used drugs to unfairly improve their performance.
World Athletics Championships -: The World Athletics Championships is a big international sports event where athletes from all over the world compete in different track and field events.
Budapest -: Budapest is the capital city of Hungary, a country in Europe. It was the location for the World Athletics Championships 2023.