NEW DELHI: India's sports minister announced Tuesday that he had sacked the Ukrainian coach of the country's female 400m runners after eight of them tested positive for steroids in a growing doping scandal.
"I have asked for his removal. He has already been removed," Ajay Maken told a news conference in New Delhi, referring to Yuri Ogrodnik, who coached three of the six to Commonwealth and Asian Games gold last year.Late Monday, one of India's brightest female track stars, Ashwini Akkunji, joined her fellow 400m runners in failing a drugs test.Akkunji was a member of the country's Commonwealth and Asian Games-winning women's 4x400m relay team and the winner of the 400m hurdles at the Asian Games with a personal best of 56.16 seconds.Three out of the four runners in the 400m relay team -- Akkunji, Mandeep Kaur and Sini Jose -- have now tested positive for banned steroids.They are among eight athletes in total -- six female 400m runners, a female shotputter and a male long-jumper -- who have now failed drugs tests, casting a cloud over Indian athletics and denting the country's Olympic ambitions.All have been provisionally suspended pending the testing of their "B" samples later this week, the National Anti-Doping Agency told AFP on Tuesday.
Maken told reporters that he has asked the Sports Authority of India, NADA and Athletics Federation of India for detailed reports into the circumstances leading to the positive tests.He has also ordered an inquiry to be headed by a retired high court judge."We will catch coaches and officials who were involved, not just athletes," Maken said, adding: "We can't be lenient..."The coach says he didn't know that the athletes were taking banned substances then I think he's all the more responsible for what's happened. The coach is supposed to know what they're taking and and tell them what to take."The tests were carried out either at a national training camp in Patiala, in the northern state of Punjab, in the last two months or after a track meeting in the southern city of Bangalore in late June.
The athletes have all protested their innocence and blamed contaminated food supplements for the results.
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