Wrestler Narsingh Yadav, who failed a doping test ahead of the Rio Olympics, has now filed a police complaint alleging someone spiked his food supplements and water in a bid to sabotage his Olympic dreams. Ever since traces of a banned steroid, metadienone, was found his urine sample by the national anti doping agency, the Commonwealth Games gold medallist has alleged it was a "conspiracy" against him.
An FIR has been filed on Yadav's complaint, reported The Times of India, and it is a 17-year-old junior wrestler who has emerged as a suspect in the case. Interestingly, the suspect is the younger brother of another wrestler in a separate heavyweight category who was in contention to represent India in the Olympics. According to the report, the suspect frequently visited the SAI Sonepat Centre where Yadav was training, and allegedly tried to enter Yadav's room while he was on tour in Bulgaria earlier in June this year. However, this was after Yadav had already submitted his urine sample for testing.
This was not the first time that Yadav suspected that his food was being tampered with, reported The Indian Express. Yadav apparently told wrestler and Olympic bronze medalist Yogeshwar Dutt before he left for Bulgaria in June that a junior wrestler had entered the kitchen and tried to mix something in his food. "I told him once again to be careful about what he was eating but he didn't think it was serious," Dutt told Express. Yadav's personal coach Jagmal Singh echoed the same claim.
The wrestler was reportedly first identified by a cook at the Sonepat training camp, and was accused for adding something to Yadav's food at the hostel kitchen. Yadav, too, has alleged that this wrestler had earlier tried to sneak into his room. If the suspect tells police that he, indeed, added the drugs to Yadav's food, the 26-year-old can still compete in the Olympics this year. Otherwise, wrestler Parveen Rana has been announced as Yadav's replacement.
Yadav has told TOI that he regrets training in Sonepat, and believes he would have never failed the drug test if he had decided to practice in Mumbai.