Decathlete Jagtar Singh, who rose to a career-high 6888 points in the recent Federation Cup in Patiala, has failed a dope test and has been forced to stay away from the 22nd Asian Athletics Championships which began here on Thursday.
The national body AFI’s 95-member Indian team for the Asians had two decathlon specialists and suspicions arose after only Abhishek Shetty started the multi-eventer today.
“Jagtar tested positive during the Federation Cup and he had come here with the team a few days ago. But on the very first day, we got the information about his positive dope test and he himself went back,” revealed a team source.
The 24-year-old from Rajasthan, who had been lying low the whole of last year, was in good form this year, winning the varsities Nationals with 6687 pts and then taking the Federation Cup gold with another good show.
NOT A MEDAL HOPE
However, he was not a contender for a medal at the Asians with five athletes, including Thailand’s Singkon Suttisak (7587 pts), Japan’s Shimizu Tsuyoshi (7579) and China’s last Asians silver medallist Qi Guo (7517), having far better season bests than him.
Jagtar had been in the 5200 to 5800 range in 2015.
A number of Indians have come up with sudden and stunning performances this season, though it was not as strong as last year before the Rio Olympics, and this has raised fears that they are perhaps on drugs.
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