Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Aug.16: In what come as another blow to India’s campaign at Rio Olympics, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) against the clean chit given to Rio-bound Narsingh Yadav by the National Anti-doping Agency (NADA) in connection with doping charges. While this may prove to be a huge hurdle for Narsingh and has the potential to end his Rio dream, the Indian contingent in Rio and the IOA is going to provide full support to the wrestler. It will be more humiliating in case CAS accepts WADA’s plea and slaps a ban on Yadav while the Games are on here.
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“We are confident that the laboratory has corrected its deficiencies and will now be operating to the high standards required by WADA”, director general of WADA Olivier Niggli said in a statement.
On the other hand, wrestler Narsingh Yadav has asked for two days time to reply to the WADA’s summon. During this period, the Indian Olympic Association went ahead and named Parveen Rana as his replacement. “We will find out Narsingh’s fate after that”, revealed Anandeshwar Pandey. Yadav said there was a conspiracy and he was a victim of sabotage.
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Sushil missed the qualification for Rio due to injury, and Narsingh secured the berth to represent the country. They even alleged that it was positive discrimination based on Narsingh’s skin colour. Confirming the news, Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh said Narsingh would undergo a doping hearing on August 18 in order to determine his participation in the 74kg men’s freestyle category at the Summer Games. It remains to be seen what effect this has on his performance if he is allowed to compete.
