Karnataka triple-jumper, Tamil Nadu sprinter fail dope tests ahead of 2022 Birmingham CWG

What happened

According to media reports, the 25-year-old Aishwarya’s sample, taken by National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) at the National Inter-State Athletics Championship in Chennai last month, turned out to be positive.

The star jumper, who created a national record after a stunning leap of 14.14m at the same athletic meet, was named for the triple jump and long jump events in the Indian athletics team. She surpassed former Kerala athlete Mayookha Johnny’s 11-year-old record of 14.11m.

Interestingly, Aishwarya’s effort of 6.73m in the long jump qualification round of the Chennai championships was the second best by an Indian woman long jumper after Kerala’s legendary Anju Bobby George (6.83m).

On the other hand, Dhanalakshmi returned positive for a banned steroid in a dope test conducted overseas by the Monaco-based Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), an independent doping combat agency founded by World Athletics, the international governing body for the sport, in 2017.

The 24-year-old Olympian, who was in the limelight after beating veteran sprinters Duttee Chand and Hima Das in the 2021 Federation Cup, was named in the CWG team for the 100m and 4x100m relay squad alongside Chand, Das, and Srabani Nanda.

In June, Dhanalkashmi won the 200m gold at the Qosanov Memorial Athletics Meet in Almaty in Kazakhstan after clocking a personal best of 22.89 seconds.

With this run, she became only the third Indian woman athlete to run under 23 seconds behind the National record holder Saraswati Saha (22.82 seconds) and Hima Das (22.88 seconds).

The sprinter was also named in the Indian team for the ongoing World Athletics Championships in Eugene in Oregon, US, but failed to make it to the event due to visa issues.