Doping menace a double-edged sword: Gulati

Pune, May 18: Former Asian Weightlifting Association (AWA) technical chairman Squadron Leader B R Gulati (Retd) today termed the 'doping' menace which has afflicted the indian weightlifters- both men and women as ''a double-edge sword.'' Sq Ldr Gulati who has served the Indian Weighlifting Federation (IWF) in various capacities over the past three decades, said the lure of money, jobs, land and related facilities are responsible for corrupting Indian male and female weightlifters and the coaches.

Though the IWF has been taking stringent actions on those found guilty of doping and has also undertaken measures to educate 'lifters' at the national camps, it has found these attempts innocuous.

He said the Indian weightlifters, who come from humble or middle class backgrounds, went to any extent, intentionally or unintentionally, to take performance enhanching drugs in the pursuit of a medal. The connivance of coaches was not ruled out, Mr Gulati added.

Mr Gulati said there was no supervision on weightlifters, who interact with their counterparts at the international meets and international training camps, and learned the tricks of the trade from foreign coaches and got hooked on to performance enhancing drugs.

After the Athen's Olympics and recently at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games, the Indian weightlifters brought bad name to the country.

The fate of the Indian Federation will be decided when the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) will meet at Budapest in Hungary some time next week to decide on the quantam of punitive action to be taken following the Melbourne Commonwealth Games, Mr Gulati said.

Hence forth the IWF had decided to keep weightlifters under strict observation, while participating at international competitions even to the extent of dinning halls Mr Gulati added.

Mr Gulati had also presented a paper at IWF seminar earlier advocating the need for IWF refrain from announcing cash awards and other related facilities to the medal winners and the coaches before any competition, which may have some sobering efect and have a minimising effct on taking to doping by the indian weightlifters.

UNI