IOC clears Sunita Rani of doping charge

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has cleared Indian middle-distance runner Sunita Rani of doping charges at October's Asian Games, an athletics official said on Tuesday.

"The IOC's medical commission has written to the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) not to pursue her case further," Amateur Athletics Federation of India (AAFI) secretary Lalit Bhanot told Reuters.

The 23-year-old was stripped of her 1,500 metres gold and 5,000 metres bronze won in Pusan, South Korea, after testing positive for a metabolite of the banned steroid nandrolone. Rani denied using any banned substances.

An AAFI internal inquiry cleared her of any wrongdoing and contested the reliability of the tests done at the games laboratory, pointing to huge fluctuations in the readings of the urine samples.

Bhanot said the IOC has written to Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) secretary general Randhir Singh, who conveyed him the message.

"The IOC has said there are so many discrepancies in the tests," he said.

The OCA is expected to act on the IOC communication after it receives the comments of its five-member task force which supervised the games.

"We hope to hear from them soon that Sunita will get back her medals. We had been confident from the beginning

that she was clean," Bhanot said.

The announcement of Rani's positive test had caused an uproar, coming at the end of an impressive Indian showing at the continental meeting with critics saying doping was rife in Indian sport.