Bhubaneswar: Ahead of the 65th National Inter-State Senior Athletics Championship, Odisha Reliance Athletics High Performance Centre terminated one athlete and suspended a few athletes for consuming Performance-Enhancing Drug.
The flagship center launched in 2019 in partnership with Odisha Government at Kalinga Stadium here with world-class indoor and outdoor facilities. This is the first incident marked that athletes are using Performance-Enhancing Drug inside the residential center here.
Such incidents related to doping have been reported internally at the Odisha Reliance Foundation Athletics HPC here. To prevent such unethical practice an elite javelin thrower, earlier who represented Odisha in the national meet has been terminated. The HPC also suspended a 400m hurdler and a decathlete have been charged and suspended.
The HPC in their internal letter officially referred to the matter as a "Performance-Enhancing Drug Incident".
The athletes are availing best of the facilities inside the HPC residential centre at Kalinga Stadium. The athletes are backed by international coaches, physiotherapists, psychologists and supporting staff. A home-grown athlete said” after getting such international facilities, why and how the athletes are using Performance-Enhancing Drug inside the Odisha Reliance Athletics High Performance Centre. It needs proper inquiry to unearth the nexus”.
