Former Asian Games discus champion Seema Antil suspended for doping
Former Asian Games discus champion Seema Antil Punia has been suspended for 16 months for a doping violation.
Forty-two-year-old Seema Antil tested positive for a gynaecological medicine, sometime in 2024 and after a prolonged hearing process the Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel (ADDP) decided to sanction her for 16 months with effect from 10 November 2025, the date of the decision.
Being a ‘specified substance’, the drug in question does not carry an automatic provisional suspension and Seema seemed to have wasted precious time without taking a voluntary suspension in 2024 which probably might have spared her further suspension at the time of the ADDP decision.
This is Seema’s third doping offence, one of them in 2006 having come when National Dope Testing Laboratory (NDTL) was not accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and thus inconsequential in terms of sanctions imposed. She was reprieved by a committee appointed by the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) then which made her eligible for the Doha Asian Games.
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Seema was named in the Indian team for the games, but after much consultations with her well-wishers and coaches, she withdrew from the team, thus avoiding further embarrassment for herself and the country.
In 2000, as a 17-year-old, she won the World junior championships gold medal at Santiago, Chile, but was stripped of the crown following a doping violation at the meet, for stimulant pseudoephedrine. She was reprimanded by the AFI for her offence, as per the rules prevalent then. Seema went onto to win a bronze in the next edition of the World juniors in 2002.
The Haryana discus thrower won the Asian Games gold in 2014, with an effort of 61.03m, having won the bronze in 2002, and took the bronze again in 2018 and 2023. She also won medals in the Commonwealth Games in 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2018.
She also held the national record in discus at 64.64m set at Chennai in 2004. Her mark of 64.84m at Kiev that year, still considered a record in international publications, was not considered for ratification by the AFI because of lack of documentation. Krishna Poonia set the current record of 64.76m at Wailuku, Hawaii, in 2012.
NADA on Friday also announced the suspensions of distance runner Pooja Yadav (EPO) for four years from 6 Sept 2024, shot putter Manjeet Kumar Mahto (methandienone, norandrosterone, mephentermine) for six years from 17 Oct 2024 and middle-distance runner Nikesh Dhanraj Rathod (darbepoetin) for four years from 11 Oct 2024. Also suspended for four years each were marathon and distance runner Kulldeep Singh, 38 (evasion), and woman steeplechaser Chavi Yadav, 33 (drostanolone).
Published on Dec 05, 2025