By Dhammika Ratnaweera
In the aftermath of India’s Asian Championship 2019- 800M Gold Medalist Marimuthu Gomathi has been stripped off her medals and has been banned for four years, 4th placed Gayanthika Abeyrathne of Sri Lanka now awaits the bronze medal.
Gomathi had been provisionally suspended on 21 May 2019 for a banned substance found (19-Norandrosterone) in the sample collected following her Gold medal run in April. 4th place finisher Gayanthika Abeyrathne now awaits an upgrade and is in line to receive the Bronze.
After a year long inquiry into this case and her ‘B’ sample too testing positive, Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) finally issued their verdict and Gomathi has been banned for four years and stripped of her all achievements since 18th March 2019. AIU is an independent anti-doping watchdog for track and field set up by World Athletics in 2017 However Gomathi still has the option of appealing to the Court of Arbitration (CAS) and had commented to the India media that she is willing to take that final option.
Sri Lankan middle distance athlete Gayanthika Abeyrathne finished fourth in the 800m finals held on 23 April with a time of 2 minutes 05.74 seconds, while Gomathi clocked a personal best of 2 minutes 02.70 seconds to win the Gold medal. If Gomathi’s medal being stripped, China’s Chunyi Wang is set to be upgraded to Gold followed by Kazkasthan’s Mararita Mukasheva to Silver and Gayanthika to Bronze.
However Asian Athletics Association (AAA) is yet to make an announcement about the possible medal re-allocation. President of the Sri Lanka Athletics Association Major General Palitha Fernando said that he is going to discuss the medal re-allocation with AAA.
This is the second consecutive time Gayanthika is getting an upgrade in the Asian Championship medal tally due to disciplinary violation by an Indian athlete. In 2017 Asian Championships India’s Archana Adhav who finished first was disqualified for violating competition rules and Gayanthika who finished third with 2.05.27 seconds was upgraded to Silver medal.
In the meantime, Sri Lanka is also keeping a close eye on World 400m champion Bahrain’s Salwa Eid Naser’s case, who has been provisionally banned by the Athletic Integrity Unit (AIU). As per AIU Naser had three whereabouts violations by October 2019 when she competed at the World Championship. Naser won five medals – including four Gold medals – in the Asian Championship 2019 in April, where the Sri Lanka 4x400m relay team finished fourth due to Naser’s amazing last leg.
If a possible ban is applicable from April or earlier, Sri Lanka could secure another Bronze medal, which would take their medal count at the Asian Championship 2019 to three. Vidusha Lakshani was the only Bronze medallist at the Asian Championship 2019 in the Triple Jump.
Three Pakistan South Asian medallists also guilty for banned substances
Meanwhile three of the Pakistan medal winners of the last South Asian Games held in Kathmandu, Nepal have tested positive for performance enhancing drugs .The foreign media stated that official of the Athletic Federation of Pakistan(AFP) has confirmed that three athletes gold medal winners Mehboob Ali (400m hurdles) and Mohammad Inam (110m hurdles) and bronze medallist Samiullah (100m) have reported positive (from ‘A’ sample) for using performance enhancing drugs.
If the tests are still positive from the second samples ‘B’ (to which they will be given the option), Pakistan will lose six medals as all three athletes were also part of bronze medal-winning relay teams.
Meanwhile Sri Lanka once again more concerned about this Pakistan three athletes final reports of the tests. If they will get banned from this substances and strip off their medals means Sri Lankan 110m hurdler Roshan Dhammika who won the bronze medal in this event upgrade for silver medal while Asanka Indrajith who was placed fourth at the 400m hurdle upgrade for third place to take bronze medal.
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