NADA India issued notices to athletes for not filing their whereabouts in stipulated time. As per NADA Anti Doping Rules – Article 5.5, some athletes, who are part of a Registered Testing Pool (RTP), are required to provide mandatory whereabouts information in the online portal/App.
This information is used to locate athletes for effective out of competition doping control.
RTP athletes are required to provide the whereabouts information on a quarterly basis 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 an 12-month period constitute an Anti-Doping Rule Violation under NADA Anti Doping Rules – Article 2.4, which may leads to imposition of sanction upto 4 years.
NADA has advised all athletes to file their whereabouts within 14 days to avoid ‘whereabouts failures’. In absence of non filing of their whereabouts, it shall be treated as filing failure.
National Sports Federations have also been advised to ensure timely submission of accurate whereabouts by their athletes to avoid ‘whereabouts failures’.
Recently, one athlete was suspended towards participating in sports activities for one year by the Anti Doping Disciplinary Panel due to reporting of ‘whereabouts failure.
