MANIPUR: WEIGHTLIFTER SANJITA CHANU APPEALS TO GOVERNOR NAJMA HEPTULLA

Commonwealth Games 2018 gold medal winning weightlifter Khumukcham Sanjita Chanu appeals to Manipur governor Najma Heptulla on 14th June regarding the doping allegations against her. The weightlifter narrated her ordeal of being charged with doping and of the threat of losing her medal.

Sanjita Chanu was provisionally suspended after she failed a dope test for a banned anabolic steroid, according to International Weightlifting Federation (IWF). She had won a gold medal in the 53kg category in the Commonwealth Games 2018. Earlier she was undergoing “one month special training” at Shilaroo, Himachal Pradesh, for upcoming Asian Games, 2018, and her coach advised her to take rest as she had already qualified for the Commonwealth Games (CWG) 2018 and concentrate on her recovery for the CWG 2018.

Although she participated in the competition only for the sake of participation and her performance in the competition was only 177 kg, which was the worst in her career. Before this, she had given the performance of 195 kg, in the CWG 2018 Qualification in September 2017 and she was quite shocked how would one underperformed so badly after consuming strength enhancement steroid.

The Indian Weightlifting Federation (IWLF) refused to provide her any document regarding the suspension. After repeated request, they finally sent the suspension letter on 24th May, 2018 via WhatsApp. Even after receiving the message, they told her to delete the document and also warned her not to inform to anyone. After reading the letter she found two different sample numbers (#1599000 and #1599176) in my suspension letter of IWF and she quickly raised this concern to the Indian and Manipuri Weightlifting Federation. They repeatedly requested their Federation to request the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) to clarify these sample numbers. However, even today, they refused to raise this matter to the IWF. They even stopped sending any message to the IWF. They also threatened her not to disclose this to media and told her to join the service at Railway immediately.

They went even to this extent that if her family member enquire further, they would terminate her job and would recollect all the money given by Railway Board so far.

Chanu further requested to give her justice and look after the matter immediately.