Indian wrestler Bajrang Punia handed four-year ban for avoiding dope test
Al Jazeera
Punia, who was at the forefront of protests against former wrestling body chief Brij Bhushan Singh, says he is innocent.
India’s Olympic medal-winning wrestler Bajrang Punia, who took part in protests against the country’s former wrestling body chief in 2023, has been banned for four years for avoiding a doping test.
Punia, 30, who won bronze at the Tokyo Olympics, had been provisionally suspended for refusing to provide a urine sample to national anti-doping agency (NADA) officers in March.
Punia contested the charges and the suspension was initially lifted, but he has since been handed a ban, according to a NADA statement on Tuesday.
Punia has maintained his innocence, saying he did not refuse testing but was wary of what he said was an expired kit that officials brought to take his sample.
Many of India’s top wrestlers led a noisy sit-in protest in New Delhi against the then-chief of the Wrestling Federation of India, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, a politician from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party.
