NEW DELHI: Indian wrestler Bajrang Punia, who was one of the leaders of the protest against the federation president last year, has been suspended by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) for evading a drug test.
Punia, a bronze medalist at the Tokyo Olympics, faces a two-year ban for refusing to provide a urine sample to doping officials in her final selection test.
“Bajrang Punia has been temporarily suspended from participating in any competition or work,” said a statement from NADA.
The document was written on April 23, but only appeared over the weekend.
According to Indian media, Punia was given a warning by NADA last month for not providing information about her whereabouts.
Punia wrote on the social media platform on Sunday, “I want to make sure that I did not refuse to submit my case to the NADA officials.
“First, I asked them to respond to me about what they did about the set of deadlines that I brought to take my samples.”
Punia attended a rally in New Delhi last year against allegations of sexual assault by Wrestling Federation president Brij Bhushan Singh.
The World Anti-Doping Agency said last month that India will account for the largest number of drug traffickers in the world by 2022.
India is the only country with more than 100 positive results, even countries that test more athletes like China, USA and Russia have some violations.
India’s 65kg wrestler has been ruled out of the Paris Olympics starting in July.
