India Tops Global Doping Ban List with 162 Athletes and Support Personnel

India continues to top the global list of athletes and support personnel serving bans for doping and related offences, according to the latest list released by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), news agency PTI reported. The AIU list has 162 names from India, the highest among all countries. Kenya is second with 148 names, while Russia is third with more than 60 cases. The list includes people serving bans for doping offences. It also includes those found guilty of non-doping rule violations such as tampering, evading testing, trafficking, or failing to provide whereabouts information, as these offences carry the same penalties as doping violations. The Athletics Integrity Unit is an independent anti-doping body set up by World Athletics. It oversees international-level athletes and their support staff. India first moved ahead of Kenya in April this year and remained at the top when the June list was released. Earlier in April, World Athletics classified India as a country with an "extremely high" doping risk after it topped the list of athletics doping offenders for the previous two years. Following a recent decision by the AIU Board, the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) was moved from Category B to Category A under Rule 15 of the World Athletics Anti-Doping Rules. "Unfortunately, the quality of the domestic anti-doping programme is simply not proportionate to the doping risk," AIU Chair David Howman had said in a release. India has been among the top two countries for Anti-Doping Rule Violations (ADRVs) in athletics from 2022 to 2025. According to the AIU, India recorded 48 ADRVs (ranked second) in 2022, 63 (ranked second) in 2023, 71 (ranked first) in 2024 and 30 ADRVs (ranked first) in 2025. Under the World Athletics Anti-Doping Rules, the AIU Board places member federations into different risk categories based on their doping record. Category A represents the highest risk, Category B represents medium risk and Category C represents low risk. Member federations in Category A must meet stricter anti-doping requirements. These include maintaining and implementing an annual testing programme that complies with the International Standard for Testing and Investigations. The testing programme must ensure that athletes selected for the national team at any World Athletics Series event, the Olympic Games or a World Athletics Ultimate Championship, and who are not already in the International Registered Testing Pool, are tested adequately. The AIU reviews the category of every member federation every three years by examining factors such as the doping history of athletes and athlete support personnel. However, it can change a federation's category at any time during that three-year period.