File photo of Bhawna Jat© X (formerly Twitter)
Indian race walker Bhawna Jat has been handed a 16-month ban by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) on Friday for whereabouts failures. The 16-month ban will commence from the date of her initial suspension on August 10, 2023, and will end on December 10, 2024, according to Olympics.com. Although the Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel (ADDP) made the decision to suspend Bhawna under Article 2.4 of the NADA Rules on July 10, 2024, it was only listed on their website on Thursday. NADA had provisionally suspended Bhawna in August last year, which prevented her from competing at the World Athletics Championships 2023 in Budapest, Hungary.
Each year, a number of Indian athletes competing at the highest level in their sport are selected by NADA for the Registered Testing Pool (RTP), which is reviewed quarterly.
All athletes included in the RTP are required to provide their whereabouts on a quarterly basis, including details such as their address for accommodations, training locations, work, competitions, and other relevant information. Non-compliance is deemed to be a filing failure.
Additionally, these athletes must provide NADA with a 60-minute time slot for testing, and failure to do so may result in a potential missed test, as per Olympics.com.
The 28-year-old Bhawna, who competed at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and is a former national record holder in the women's 20km race walk, failed to appear for two doping tests in May and June 2023. She was also reported for one filing failure in the last quarter of 2022.
Bhawna attributed the filing failure to technical issues she encountered with the mobile application while trying to complete the form. Additionally, she mentioned losing her phone, which further complicated matters.