'Doping has become a universal problem'

A massive awareness needed to be created among sportspersons, coaches and even doctors to deal with the menace of doping in sports, said Dr P S M Chandran, president of Indian Federation of Sports Medicine.

"Doping in sports will remain as long as sports remains. We cannot pinpoint any particular sportsperson or country for the menace as doping has become a universal problem," he said.

Chandran, who was in Jamshedpur to attend a two-day sports seminar organised by the Tata Steel sports department, said majority of sportspersons were taking banned medicines because of lack of knowledge.

"Leave alone athletes, even the doctors and the coaches were unaware about the medicine banned by World anti-doping agency (Wada)," he said while attributing the regular launching of new medicines by pharmaceutical companies as one of the reason behind it.

However, WADA has been releasing a list of prohibited medicines, which medicines should not be taken for a particular event and the list is being updated every year to prevent sportspersons from using it, he said.

A former chief medical officer of Hockey India, Chandran said the seminar deliberated upon various issues related to doping and even made the participants understand what is doping in sports.