THE GIST of Editorial for UPSC Exams : 12 August 2019 (Dealing with doping: On BCCI consent to come under WADA (The Hindu))

Dealing with doping: On BCCI consent to come under WADA (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Governance
Prelims level: World Anti-Doping Agency
Mains level: Combat anti dope measures taken by World Anti-Doping Agency

Context

• Sport is expected to operate at a higher moral plane where the effort is honest and transparency remains an abiding principle.
• It is a utopian ideal leaning on pure performance, copious sweat and relentless training.
• But in a practical world greased with greed, besides match-fixing, there is another terrible offence: ingestion of performance-enhancing drugs.
• Athletes like Canada’s Ben Johnson were labelled as drug-cheats and rightly denied their Olympic medals.

About World Anti-Doping Agency

• The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), since its inception in 1999, has imposed stringent measures so that sport stays drug-free.
• In India, WADA’s rules have been enforced by the Government-run National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) and almost all sports federations had fallen in line except one behemoth — the Board of Control for Cricket inIndia (BCCI).
• But that aberration was erased as the BCCI accepted NADA’s supervision following a meeting between its CEO Rahul Johri, General Manager Saba Karim and Sports Ministry officials led by Sports Secretary Radhey Shyam Julaniya.
• Indian cricket’s governing body finally agreed to subject its players to NADA’s testing routines. Before its turn-around, the BCCI had resisted NADA’s intervention.
• The main objection pertained to the ‘where-abouts’ clause, which made it mandatory for a player to reveal where he would be on a daily basis.
• The need for privacy was offered as an excuse.

Recent dope test incident

• Earlier, the BCCI had its in-house dope-tests but it only lent credence to the allegations about conflict of interest.
• The issue came to a boil when Prithvi Shaw was given a back-dated eight-month suspension after he tested positive for a banned drug, Terbutaline.
• The 19-year-old batsman, who was checked in February, claimed that the substance was present in an over-the-counter cough syrup.
• Shaw’s excuse and the BCCI’s quick acceptance of his self-medication, bred scepticism.
• It is either naivety or a classic cover-up from an Indian cricketer, who had been advised about the chemicals that have to be avoided even for therapeutic purposes.
• The silver-lining is that the episode hastened the BCCI’s move into the NADA’s ambit and also cleared the decks for the Indian women’s cricket team to compete in the 2022 Commonwealth Games at Birmingham.

Conclusion

• With the BCCI belatedly allowing NADA to monitor its domestic cricketers, by extension the International Cricket Council too has finally come under the WADA’s unerring gaze.
• In these hyper-kinetic times, it is a fallacy to stress that cricket is just a reflection of skill and that drug-enhanced muscular efficiency cannot influence match results.
• Sport has to be a level playing-field and it is finally one with the willow-game subjecting itself to universal drug-testing rules.

  Online Coaching for UPSC PRE Exam

  General Studies Pre. Cum Mains Study Materials

Prelims Questions:

Q.1) Consider the following statements with reference to the Sharada Peeth:
1. It is in the Garhwal Himalayas, Uttarakhand, on the banks of the Alaknanda River.
2. It is one of the 18 Maha Shakti Peethas throughout South Asia that commemorate the location of fallen body parts of the Hindu deity Sati.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
A. 1 only
B. 2 only
C. All the above
D. None

Answer: B
Mains Questions:
Q.1) How Cricket bodies must keep the game free of performance enhancing drugs?