Gymnast Dipa Karmakar serving two-year ban for anti-doping violation

Authorities administering sports in India remained tight-lipped about the matter, so did the FIG, the gymnastics Federation of India (GFI) and the National Anti-Doping agency (NADA).TOI can now confirm that the ‘Produnova’ girl Dipa, who changed the face of gymnastics in India after her ground-breaking fourth-place finish in the women’s vault final at the Rio Olympics 2016, is currently serving a two-year ban for an anti-doping violation under the whereabouts rule.Multiple sources have told this publication that Dipa is under suspension since the second half of 2021 for her failure to honour the whereabouts guidelines as mandated by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

Attempts to reach out over phone to GFI president Sudhir Mittal, Dipa and her long-serving coach, Bishweshwar Nandi, for their reactions didn’t elicit any response. The trio also didn’t respond to messages sent separately on their whatsapp chats. A separate email sent to the FIG’s media department met with a ‘no comment’ response. “FIG has no further comments regarding this matter. Thank you for your understanding,” wrote Loïc Vidmer, FIG’s anti-doping medical manager and secretary of the disciplinary commission.It’s been learnt that the officials in the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and NADA have blamed Nandi, who has coached Dipa since her childhood and was instrumental in her rise to the top, for the Padma Shri, Khel Ratna and Arjuna awardee gymnast’s failure to file her whereabouts on the ‘Anti-Doping Administration Management System’ (ADAMS) managed by WADA, which is designed to secure information relevant to athletes, support personnel and anti-doping organisations for an effective out-of-competition testing programme.If an athlete in the