Indian weightlifters Tejinder Singh and Edwin Raju, found guilty of doping at the Commonwealth Games, face life bans, Indian Weightlifting Federation said on Friday.
Claiming that the Federation had taken "very serious measures" to prevent such embarrassments, IWF president H J Dora, who is also the chef-de-mission of the Indian contingent at the Melbourne Games, said in a statement that according to the Federation's bylaws, any athlete found positive in an international competition would be subject to a life ban.
The Commonwealth Games Federation on Friday officially informed the Indian contingent that two members of their weightlifting team had returned positive drugs tests.
However, Dora expressed surprise at the positive dope tests claiming that the athletes underwent dope tests before they left India.
"We are determined to ensure that the testing process is fully scrutinised as the athletes in question have been subjected to three rounds of dope testing in the past month which have all been negative. The last test on these two athletes by WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) was on March 1 and the weightlifters arrived in Melbourne on March 10," Dora said.
The matter has been referred to the Court of Arbitration for Sport by the Commonwealth Games Federation.
Dora said that India had successfully participated in three international weightlifting tournaments in 2005 where it was subjected to official WADA dope testing and no positive results were found.
"The Indian weightlifting team also competed in the Annual Commonwealth Weightlifting Competition held in Melbourne last October where they won 13 medals. The athletes were all tested by WADA as per standard procedures and no cases of doping were found," Dora added.
