NEW DELHI: Where has Indian gymnastics\u2019 poster girl Dipa Karmakar been since March this year when the news about her \u2018suspended\u2019 status on the international gymnastics federation\u2019s (FIG) website first broke out? Several theories did the rounds from her being punished for an ethical or disciplinary issue to a possible 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 \u2018Produnova\u2019 girl Dipa, who changed the face of gymnastics in India after her ground-breaking fourth-place finish in the women\u2019s 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\u2019t elicit any response. The trio also didn\u2019t respond to messages sent separately on their whatsapp chats.
A separate email sent to the FIG\u2019s media department met with a \u2018no comment\u2019 response.
\u201cFIG has no further comments regarding this matter. Thank you for your understanding,\u201d wrote Lo\u00efc Vidmer, FIG\u2019s anti-doping medical manager and secretary of the disciplinary commission.
It\u2019s 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\u2019s failure to file her whereabouts on the \u2018Anti-Doping Administration Management System\u2019 (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 registered testing pool (RTP) commits three whereabouts failures (which can be a combination of filing failure and\/or missed tests) in a 12-month period, it will constitute an anti-doping rule violation (ADRV) and he\/she will be sanctioned for a period of ineligibility of 12 to 24 months (first offence) or more for subsequent offences.
All athletes in the RTP list are required to provide their whereabouts on quarterly basis, including address for overnight accommodations, activity schedules, competition schedules and locations and a daily 60-minute time slot for each day where they will be available and accessible for testing and (will be) liable for a potential missed test.
In Dipa\u2019s case, it was the responsibility of Nandi to submit her whereabouts information on the ADAMS as an \u2018athlete agent\u2019. However, athletes are ultimately responsible for their whereabouts and, as a result, they cannot avoid responsibility by blaming their representative for filing inaccurate information about their whereabouts or for not updating their whereabouts if they were not at the location specified by them during the 60-minute time-slot.
SAI has washed its hands off the suspension by claiming that Nandi is a coach with the Tripura government\u2019s state sports department and doesn\u2019t work on its payroll.
NADA, according to sources, is miffed with Nandi for harming Dipa\u2019s career and wants to initiate action against him within its jurisdiction, like the one meted out to Mumbai-based athletics coach Mickey Menzes, who was banned for four years and fined Rs 50,000 for injecting a prohibited substance, Drostanolone, into his trainee Kirti Bhoite, who is now serving a two-year ban.
A list of gymnasts \u2013 13 in total \u2013 shared with this correspondent by a source clearly mentions Dipa\u2019s name among the athletes suspended by the FIG, with the Indian\u2019s being the only entry. Also, a search of Dipa\u2019s profile on the FIG\u2019s \u2018biographies\u2019 section on Friday yielded no result, where she was described in March as \u2018suspended\u2019. The licensing section, which divides the gymnasts as \u2018active, retired and suspended\u2019, threw up no mention of Dipa\u2019s name.
Dipa had been struggling with injuries ever since she underwent a surgery to treat an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury in 2017. Her last FIG event was the 2019 World Cup in Baku. She didn\u2019t compete at the Tokyo Olympics 2020 after failing to secure qualification owing to knee injury.<\/div>\n