Nur Hasan, Murli Gavit and Hemraj Gurjar provisionally suspended

When Mohammed Nur Hasan clocked an impressive 8:30.56s while winning the gold at the Federation Cup in Ranchi last year and climbed to the second rung in India’s all-time 3000m steeple chase list, many wondered whether he would slowly take over from Asian Games champion and national record-holder Avinash Sable.

But strangely, a couple of months after that stunning run, Hasan had a DNF (did not finish) at the Asian Championships in Bangkok. The 22-year-old National Open champion from the Services has now been provisionally suspended by the National Anti-Doping Agency for an apparent anti-doping rule violation.

Railways’ Hemraj Gurjar, the National cross-country men’s champion, and women’s silver medallist Anjali Kumari from Bihar — both competed in last month’s cross-country Worlds in Belgrade — also figure in the NADA’s updated list of athletes who are now under provisional suspension.

Gujarat’s 2019 Asian 10,000m silver medallist Murli Gavit, the winner of the strange 5000m race at last October’s National Open in Bengaluru — a race which nobody appeared keen to win — is one of the prominent names in the list.

Meanwhile, the Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel (ADDP) has handed out a two-year suspension (from Aug. 10, 2023) to Tamil Nadu’s G. Lakshmanan, the star of the 2017 Bhubaneswar Asian Championships where he won the 5000m and 10,000m golds. UP’s female sprinter Himani Chandel has been punished with a four-year ban (from June 15, 2023).

The NADA list also includes many others from other sports who have been punished with suspensions ranging from two to four years. Seventeen minors, with a majority from weightlifting and athletics, have also received two to four-year bans.