Indian athletes have seldom caught the eye in Olympics and other international events but the country has ignominiously topped the charts in the doping arena.
In the International Association of Athletics Federations' list of doping offenders released on Friday, India has made it to the Hall of Shame with 40 athletes being in the banned list followed by Russia with 25 and the United States with 12 known doping cases.
For a country which barely makes a mark in the track and field events internationally, the doping menace in the domestic and junior championships is a big blow to India's image globally.
Even as the top sports administrators in the country are busying themselves with the elections for the Indian Olympic Association slated for next week, Indian athletics has plunged to hitherto unheard levels of shame.
For the last couple years the number of Indian athletes caught doping has steadily increased, but in a rather shocking revelation, India, it is learnt, is home to the maximum number athletes who are currently serving a ban on doping.
In the latest list of athletes' dope cheats and their ban duration released by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) on Friday, an astonishing 40 Indian athletes, figure in it. Startlingly, a majority of them have been caught out in domestic meets.
Doping in athletics has traditionally a European or the former Soviet bloc's domain, but with 40 of the 178 offenders in the IAAF list being Indians, the equation seem to have ignominiously swung India's way.
India is followed by Russia on the infamous list with 25 confirmed offenders.
The first big blow was the positive test of the country's quarter mile golden girls Ashwini Akkunji, Mandeep Kaur, Sini Jose and Jauna Murmu last year and with the National Anti-Doping Agency having intensified its mission of weeding out the drug cheats, more skeletons seem to have tumbled out of the closet.
One look at the list which has many little known domestic athletes shows how deep-rooted the doping menace is.
Of the offenders, 22 of them have been serving a ban since 2011 and the most disturbing is the fact that a chunk of them have flunked the dope test at the junior competitions. This year alone, nine athletes have been banned thus far.
An IAAF source said the number is alarming but not surprising.
“Doping has been prevalent for a long time now. The only difference is that the men who protected these athletes are no longer in power and as a result NADA have a free hand to conduct tests. The numbers would have been more if NADA's hearing and verdict process was faster. The next list will see a sharp increase as many cases are still pending and awaiting verdicts.”
While the IAAF is keeping a hawk eye on Indian athletes, the administrators seem to have turned a blind eye to their entry into the hall of shame.