Former world and Asian championships medallist Pooja Dhanda has been issued a one-year suspension by India's National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) for three whereabouts failures in a year.NADA recorded two filing failures and one missed test against Pooja in the period of 12 months in 2022. Her one-year ban came into effect on June 15, 2023, Olympics.com reported.
She received the initial filing failure letter from NADA in July 2022, followed by a second letter in October of the same year.In December 2022, she was unable to undergo the test. Pooja contended that the missed test resulted from her travel arrangements to Visakhapatnam for the national wrestling championships scheduled from December 21 to 23.
NADA’s Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel noted that Pooja had proposed providing her sample in either Rohtak or Delhi on December 21 as an alternative resolution. The panel determined that the level of fault was not severe.
An Athlete in NADA’s Registered Testing Pool is required to provide the whereabouts information every quarter which includes: Home address, email address and phone number, an address for overnight accommodations, Competition schedules and locations and a 60-minute time slot for each day where they’ll be available and accessible for testing and liable for a potential 'missed test'.
Any combination of three Whereabouts Failures (filing failures and/or missed tests) within a 12-month period constitutes an Anti-Doping Rule Violation under NADA Anti Doping Rules - Article 2.4, which may lead to the imposition of a sanction for up to 4 years.