TL;DR India’s anti-doping record reveals a rising number of athletes found with positive doping findings, concentrated heavily in athletics and weightlifting. Since 2015, a total of 1492 cases have been recorded, with 2024 the highest. Juniors account for 11.5% of cases since 2017, raising questions about testing, prevention, athlete education and institutional accountability.

Context

Indian sport has spent the past few years arguing, often painfully, about what athletes owe to the rules and what institutions owe to athletes.

The question acquired a fresh resonance this month. On 3 August 2026, a Delhi court acquitted former Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh in the sexual-harassment case brought by women wrestlers, a verdict that the complainants have said they intend to challenge. Two years earlier, Vinesh Phogat’s Olympic campaign ended not because she lost on the mat, but because she was found 100 grams over the 50-kg limit at the second weigh-in in Paris. Her subsequent appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport was dismissed.

These episodes are not doping cases, and they should not be treated as such. But they sit within the same larger question: how does Indian sport enforce its rules, distribute responsibility and protect the integrity of competition? In one instance, the issue was institutional accountability; in another, the unforgiving application of a technical eligibility rule. Doping presents a third and particularly revealing version of the problem, one in which the state actively tests athletes, identifies violations and imposes sanctions.

In today’s story, we look at what India’s anti-doping record reveals about the sporting ecosystem over the past decade. The analysis examines doping violations across sports and years, the age profile of athletes involved, and the number of athletes, coaches and other athlete-support personnel sanctioned by the Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel and Anti-Doping Appeal Panel.

Who compiles this data?

The data on doping violations is compiled by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) India, the country’s designated anti-doping organisation under the Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports. NADA oversees anti-doping activities including testing, investigation and management of anti-doping rule violations. Cases are adjudicated through the Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel (ADDP), with appeals heard by the Anti-Doping Appeal Panel (ADAP).

Where can I download clean & structured data related to this?

Clean, structured, and ready-to-use datasets on India’s performance across major sporting events, including the Olympics, Paralympics, and Asian Games, are available on Dataful. Exclusive datasets on sexual harassment cases reported against coaches and staff at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) is also available on Dataful, offering a broader view of India’s sporting ecosystem beyond performance on the field.

Key Insights

Doping violations have risen sharply in recent years, with 2024 recording the highest annual total

Since 2015, Indian sport has recorded 1,492 positive doping finding cases across disciplines. The trajectory has not been linear, but the broad direction is difficult to miss.

The decade began with 117 cases in 2015, followed by a decline during the pandemic-disrupted years, when sporting calendars and testing opportunities were themselves affected. Cases then rose sharply from 51 in 2021 to 130 in 2022, before reaching 222 in 2023 and a record 278 in 2024. The 2024 figure was almost twice that of 2019, a pre-pandemic year. Cases fell to 148 in 2025, and the 2026 tally stands at 102 cases.

This is not, by itself, evidence that doping prevalence among athletes has doubled or that Indian sport has become less clean. Positive findings are shaped not only by underlying doping behaviour but also by the volume and targeting of tests, the number of competitions, laboratory capacity, changes in detection methods and case-processing timelines. The pandemic years are particularly poor benchmarks because sporting activity and testing were disrupted.

Even with those caveats, the recent concentration is striking. Four of the five highest annual totals since 2015 have occurred since 2022. The numbers therefore warrant closer examination, not simply as a count of athletes caught, but as a window into how India’s anti-doping system has expanded, where violations are concentrated, and whether the rise reflects more doping, more effective detection, or some combination of the two.

Athletics and weightlifting account for nearly half of athletes found doping

The Ministry’s sport-wise breakdown shows a striking concentration in the number of athletes found doping: athletics and weightlifting together account for about 44% of all athletes recorded with positive doping findings since 2015.

Athletics leads by a wide margin, with 397 athletes found with positive doping findings during the period, more than one in four of the national total. Weightlifting follows with 267 athletes, while wrestling (141) and powerlifting (around 135) account for substantial numbers. Bodybuilding, with 101 athletes, is also among the sports with more than 100 recorded athletes found doping.

The concentration is notable, but it should not be interpreted as evidence that athletes in these sports are inherently more likely to dope. Different sports have different athlete populations, testing volumes, competitive structures and physiological incentives, all of which can influence the number of positive findings. What the data clearly show is that a relatively small group of strength- and endurance-intensive disciplines accounts for a disproportionate share of India’s recorded anti-doping cases.

Junior athletes account for roughly one in nine athletes found doping

The age profile of athletes found doping suggests that the problem is not confined to the senior ranks. The age-wise breakdown from 2017 onwards shows that athletes under 18 accounted for 11.5% of all athletes found with positive doping findings. The share varied considerably by year, reaching 22.1% in 2018, when more than one in five athletes found doping were juniors.

The presence of minors in these figures raises questions that go beyond individual choices. Young athletes often encounter coaches, trainers, supplements and competitive pressures long before reaching the senior level. A junior athlete testing positive is therefore not simply a statistic about an individual violation. It raises questions about how effectively anti-doping education reaches young competitors, and about the role played by coaches, trainers, medical personnel and other members of the athlete-support network in preventing prohibited substance use.

Why does it matter?

Doping is not simply an athlete-level problem; it is a test of the institutions responsible for protecting the integrity of sport. As India pursues greater ambitions in global sport, the credibility of its anti-doping system matters more.

More positive findings do not automatically mean more doping; expanded and better-targeted testing can also increase detection. But the limited sanctions involving coaches and support staff, alongside disciplinary delays, raise questions about how responsibility is enforced.

Key Numbers

• 1,492 positive doping finding cases recorded in India since 2015

• 1,513 athletes found positive for doping since 2015

• Only 2 Anti-Doping Rule Violations (ADRVs) cases involving Coach/trainer/support staff since 2015

• 44% of the athletes found positive for doping since 2015 came from just two sports: athletics (397) and weightlifting (267)

• 11.5% of athletes found positive for doping were junior athletes under 18