India’s only weightlifting entry for the Olympic Games, Monica Devi, was stopped Tuesday from boarding a flight to Beijing to compete in the Olympics after testing positive for a banned substance.
The Press Trust of India reported that Devi tested positive for an anabolic salt in a test conducted on June 29. It quoted unnamed officials as saying the report showing the positive result came just hours before Devi was to leave the Indian capital for Beijing. It said she has now been withdrawn from the games that start Friday.
Indian Olympic officials were traveling and not available to comment.
Devi’s failed doping test is the fourth by an Indian weightlifter since May.
Junior male weightlifter Harpreet Singh testing positive for the banned steroid nandrolone last month, while Kavita Devi and Paritosh Upadhyay failed doping tests in May.
Kavita Devi was sent back from the Asian women’s championship in Japan after the Weightlifting Federation of India was informed of her positive doping test result by WADA, which had collected an out-of-competition sample.
Upadhyay tested positive in an out-of-competition test conducted by the Sports Authority of India, which also caught Singh during his training program.
Repeated doping violations by Indian weightlifters have led India to be banned twice from international competitions since the 2004 Olympics in Athens.
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