Good news for all the Indian supporters.
**OCA to return medals to Sunita Rani **
Tuesday, January 7, 2003 (New Delhi):
Ending the three-month long trauma of distance runner Sunita Rani, the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) today announced its decision to return the athlete the two medals she won at the Busan Asian Games in October last year.
The decision, which was a formality following a clean chit to Sunita Rani from the International Olympic Committee’s medical commission last month, was announced by OCA secretary general Randhir Singh here.
“The OCA is now pleased to confirm that it has cleared Ms Rani of all charges and is extremely pleased to reinstate her and return her medals,” OCA president Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah said in a statement released by Randhir Singh.
Sunita Rani, who had won a gold medal in women’s 1,500m and a bronze in 5,000m, was stripped of her medals after testing “positive” for a banned substance nandrolone in the post-race dope tests.
But an IOC Sub-commission on Doping and Biochemistry found a “serious discrepancy” in the testing procedures at the Seoul laboratory where Sunita Rani’s samples were tested and said the athlete was “incorrectly found positive”.
“Therefore, the OCA hereby declares that Ms Sunita Rani won a gold medal in the 1,500m and a bronze medal in the 5,000m during the 14th Asian Games,” the statement said.
Randhir Singh said the medals, which are in Kuwait at OCA headquarters, would be handed over to Sunita Rani “very soon” at a ceremony here.
He said with Sunita Rani being cleared of dope charges, the Busan Asian Games had been rendered “totally drug free”.
“This was the only positive dope test at Busan which now stands nullified. The Busan Asian Games were thus totally drug free,” he said.
Randhir Singh, who is also the secretary-general of the Indian Olympic Association, said to create greater awareness about drugs, India had requested IOC to conduct a medical course here ahead of the inaugural Afro-Asian Games to be staged here later this year.
Lalit Bhanot, secretary of Amateur Athletic Federation of India, said the clean chit to Sunita Rani had brought the “lustre” back to the medals won by the athletic contingent at the Busan Asian Games. (PTI)