2 min readApr 3, 2026 06:05 PM IST
India have the most number of athletes in the latest Athletics Integrity Unit’s (AIU) list of ineligible athletes due to doping violations, with 148 suspended track and field athletes surpassing the African nation Kenya.
The latest updated list is for the period up to April 1 this year. Russia took the third spot with 66 suspended athletes.
The Athletics Integrity Unit is an independent anti-doping watchdog established by World Athletics. It has jurisdiction over international-level athletes and their support persons.
The list features some prominent Indian names, such as 100m national record holder Dutee Chandigarh, middle distance runner Parvej Khan, and sprinter Dhanalakshmi Sekar. While Dutee is serving her four-year suspension from 2022, Parvej is banned till July 2030 serving a six year suspension. Dhanalakshmi has an eight-year suspension after she was caught for the second time last year during the Inter-State National Championships.
The list includes persons serving a period of ineligibility as a result of national-level cases and decisions. It also includes persons who have committed non-doping violations such as tampering, evading testing, trafficking, or missing whereabouts, which carry the same penalties as a doping offence.
Last year in December when World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) released their annual report for the year 2024, India featured on the top of the list with 260 athletes tested positive for prohibited performance-enhancing drugs. To put it in context, no other country in the world had dope cheats in triple digits. At 3.6 per cent, India’s positivity ratio, too, was among the highest in the world. The National Anti Doping Agency (NADA) collected 7,113 urine and blood samples of which 260 returned positive.
After 2024 Paris Olympics, the Athletics Federation of India has decentralised the national camps. Currently, the AFI is only conducting national camps for relay teams. All other elite athletes have chosen private organisations like Reliance, JSW, Tatas or government departments like Army, and Navy for training
