Is NADA giving up its battle to clean up sport?

NADA still missing at Bhopal National senior aquatic championships.

The National aquatic championships is a qualification event for next year's Tokyo Olympics. (REPRESENTATIVE IMAGE)

Is the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) giving up on its battle to clean up sport in the country?

The National aquatic championships, which had its penultimate day's events here on Tuesday, is a qualification event for next year's Tokyo Olympics and also this month's Asian age-group championships in Bengaluru but the NADA officials are yet to show up to test the swimmers here.

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“They said they would be coming but nobody has turned up so far, they have their own problems to handle,” said a senior official of the Swimming Federation of India (SFI) on Tuesday.

The World Anti-Doping Agency had suspended India's dope-testing laboratory (NDTL) for six months recently and now, since the samples have to be taken to a foreign lab for testing which makes the process more expensive, the NADA appears to have taken the easy way out and is now giving an entire championship a miss!