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India ranked among the top two in athletics\u2019 most anti-doping rule violations between 2022 and 2025, AUI says.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Published On 20 Apr 2026<\/span>20 Apr 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Indian athletes must now meet tougher anti-doping requirements after their federation was placed \u2060in the \u2060highest-risk category of World Athletics, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) has said.<\/p>\n India was elevated on Monday to a list of nations where there is an \u201cextremely high\u201d risk of doping.<\/p>\n The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) joins the likes of Russia, Belarus, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria and Ukraine in the AIU\u2019s highest rating of Category A after being moved up from Category B.<\/p>\n Category A means India\u2019s athletes must now comply with more stringent anti-doping requirements.<\/p>\n The world\u2019s most populous country ranked in the top two for the most anti-doping violations in athletics between 2022 and 2025, the AIU said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe doping situation in India has been high-risk for a long time and, unfortunately, the quality of the domestic anti-doping programme is simply not proportionate to the doping risk,\u201d AIU chair David Howman said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the AFI has advocated for anti-doping reforms within India, not enough has changed.<\/p>\n \u201cThe AIU will now work with the AFI to achieve reforms to safeguard the integrity of the sport of athletics, as we have done with other Category A member federations.\u201d<\/p>\n The AIU is an independent body tasked with fighting corruption and wrongdoing, including doping, in athletics.<\/p>\n India is set to host the 2030 Commonwealth Games, seen as a stepping stone for its ambition of staging the 2036 Olympics.<\/p>\n In the latest doping case in Indian athletics, Asian Games gold medallist archer Prathamesh Jawkar has been banned for two years.<\/p>\n He accepted the punishment for a whereabouts failure and will miss the Asian Games in September-October in Japan.<\/p>\n World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) chief Witold Banka, who was in New Delhi last week, said India is the biggest producer of performance-enhancing drugs.<\/p>\n However, he noted that India consistently leading the list of drug cheats will not hamper its chances of hosting prestigious global sporting events.<\/p>\n AFI spokesperson Adille Sumariwalla said the federation was \u2060working with the AIU, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports and the National Anti-Doping Agency to address the issue.<\/p>\n \u201cAFI has got a strong plan \u2060, and we are all for criminalising doping in this \u2060country,\u201d Sumariwalla, also a World Athletics vice president, told the Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s nothing wrong in more scrutiny. More athletes are getting caught in India because more tests are being conducted.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are fighting it tooth and nail. \u200cThe crooks and criminals doing it should be stopped by police. We are not police, our job is to create a policy, and the government is helping.\u201d<\/p>\n When an Indian \u200cdelegation \u200cvisited the International Olympic Committee headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, last year, they were told to curb the doping menace to boost their Olympic bid.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n India ranked among the top two in athletics\u2019 most anti-doping rule violations between 2022 and 2025, AUI says. Published On 20 Apr 202620 Apr 2026 Indian athletes must now meet tougher anti-doping requirements after their federation was placed \u2060in the \u2060highest-risk category of World Athletics, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) has said. India was elevated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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