India’s doping crisis has finally run out of places to hide. The Athletics Integrity Unit Board has downgraded the Athletics Federation of India. It’s a formal acknowledgement of what the data has been showing for years. The doping risk among Indian athletes is “extremely high”, the autonomous body set up by World Athletics reportedly said.
The timing is critical here given that Gujarat is keen to host the 2036 Summer Olympics. If the state is successful in the bid, it would make India a Summer Olympics host for the first time in its history.
When an Indian delegation flew to the IOC’s headquarters in Lausanne last July to make that pitch, India’s doping record was among the concerns the committee raised. This downgrade will do nothing to ease those doubts.
The reclassification into Category A is not just a label. It comes with real consequences. Every national team member must now be tested before major championships. Testing must include in-competition checks, no-notice out-of-competition visits, and pre-competition blood screening. All samples go to WADA-accredited laboratories for full menu analysis. And if an Indian athlete lives or trains abroad, the responsibility to get them tested still rests with the AFI.
The blow also lands as India heads into the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and the Asian Games in Japan this year, both now shadowed by this downgrade.
“The doping situation in India has been high-risk for a long time and, unfortunately, the quality of the domestic anti-doping programme is simply not proportionate to the doping risk. While the AFI has advocated for anti-doping reforms within India, not enough has changed. The AIU will now work with the AFI to achieve reforms to safeguard the integrity of the sport of athletics, as we have done with other ‘Category A’ Member Federations,” David Howman, AIU Chair, said in a statement.
Look at the data and a pattern emerges, one that has been building for years. According to a report, between 2022 and 2025, India has sat at or near the top of the global rankings for Anti-Doping Rule Violations in athletics. In 2022, India recorded 48 violations and ranked second in the world.
Two years ago, the number climbed to 63, still second. In 2024, it jumped again to 71, and India moved to first. For 2025, 30 violations have already been recorded, again placing India at the top, though the AIU notes there is a significant time lag before final figures are confirmed.
Zoom out to all sports and the picture is just as grim. According to the World Anti-Doping Agency’s annual report for 2024, India had the highest number of doping violations on the planet. A total of 260 Indian athletes tested positive for banned performance-enhancing substances. No other country was even in triple digits.
India’s positivity ratio (3.6 per cent) was among the world’s highest. According to a report, the National Anti-Doping Agency collected 7,113 samples, and 260 came back positive. Compare that to China, which ran 24,214 tests and found just 43 positives. Five other countries also tested their athletes far more rigorously: Germany (15,081 tests; 54 positives), France (11,744 tests; 91 positives), Russia (10,514 tests; 76 positives), Italy (9,304 tests; 85 positives) and the UK (8,273 tests; 30 positives). India tested less and caught more, which says something troubling about the scale of the problem.
World Athletics vice-president and AFI spokesperson Adille Sumariwalla reportedly did not contest the decision. He called it a good step, one that would bring more scrutiny and, ultimately, clean up the system. He said more still needed to happen, particularly around intelligence gathering, out-of-competition testing, and checks at state and district level where the problem is likely deepest.
He pushed for criminalisation as the sharpest deterrent available. He said the government was finally moving in that direction, something he had been calling for years. He argued that coaches, suppliers and distributors should face suspension and arrest. He pointed to an Indian athlete currently serving three years in a Kenyan jail for distributing banned substances as proof that hard consequences change behaviour.
His message to Indian sport was blunt. Education had run its course. The time for regulation had arrived. The AFI, NADA and the government, he said, had no choice but to get in the same room and fix this together.
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