Top Indian race walker Bhawna Jat handed 16-month ban for ‘‘whereabouts failure’‘ by NADA panel

Top Indian race walker Bhawna Jat has been handed a 16-month ban for whereabouts failure by the Anti-Doping Disciplinary (ADDP) Panel of the NADA after she committed the offence in August last year.

Bhawna, a former national record holder in women’s 20km race walk, was provisionally suspended by the National Anti-Doping Agency in August last year and she was recalled from Budapest where she had reached to take part in the 2023 World Athletics Championships.

Her 16-month ban period will, however, begin from August 10, 2023, the date of provisional suspension. Her ban will thus be over on December 10 this year.

The ADDP’s decision to hand her the suspension under Article 2.4 of the NADA Rules was delivered on July 10 but it was published on the website of the national anti-doping watchdog only on Thursday.

Under Article 2.4, “Any combination of three (3) missed tests and/or filing failures, as defined in the International Standard for Results Management, within a twelve (12) month period by an Athlete in a Registered Testing Pool” constitutes ‘Whereabouts Failures’ by an athlete.

The 28-year-old Bhawna had also missed two dope tests in May and June 2023 and was warned of a filing failure in late 2022.

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Jat had then blamed her failure to fulfil NADA’s whereabouts conditions on glitches in the mobile application, through which she had to fill up the form, and subsequently losing her phone.

She had told PTI that her whereabouts failure was not intentional.

“I don’t know how this happened. I had gone somewhere. I was not able to receive the OTP on the (mobile) application and later I lost my phone as well. This is the reason I wasn’t able to update my whereabouts,” she had said.

Bhawna had competed in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. She had won gold in the 20km race-walk event at the National Inter-State Championships in June last year.

There are two types of whereabouts failures — filing failures and missed tests.

Under the World Athletics Anti-Doping (WADA) rules, any combination of whereabouts failures — filing failure and/or missed test — within a period of 12 months constitute an anti-doping rule violation, for which the applicable sanction is two years ineligibility, subject to reduction to a minimum of one year depending on the degree of fault of the athlete.

Athletes included in the Registered Testing Pool (RTP) must provide a full address for their overnight location, the name and full address of each location where they train, work or conduct other regular scheduled activities, as well as the usual time-frames of each activity.

RTP athletes must also identify a 60-minute window and location for each day of the quarter, during which they must be available for testing. Failure to comply with whereabouts and testing obligations will result in a whereabouts failure.