Sini Jose became the second runner from Indias celebrated multi-medalist 4x400 m womens relay squad to test positive for anabolic steroids Thursday. She joined the hall of shame a day after the same banned substance was found in the urine sample of Mandeep Kaur,the anchor-leg runner of the Commonwealth and Asiad gold-winning quartet. Sini,24,was among five athletes who failed the dope test at the June 11-14 Inter-State Athletics Championships in Bangalore. Middle distance runners Juana Murmu and Tiana Mary Thomas,shot putter Sonia and long-jumper Hari Krishna too tested positive for anabolic steroids. Murmu,along with Mandeep,is already under provisional suspension after her sample returned an adverse result in an out-of-competition test by the international athletics body. All five athletes have been provisionally suspended by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) after their A samples showed the banned substance,Athletics Federation of India (AFI) director ML Dogra said. The AFI is disappointed at the turn of events. We will look into how so many athletes tested positive, Dogra said. At the Bangalore meet,Murmu had finished behind Ashwini Akkunji and Mandeep Kaur to claim the bronze at 53.81; Tiana had come in fifth at 54.50. Tiana was part of the Kerala 4x400m relay quartet which won gold with a time of 3:44.81. Sini,who also represented Kerala,took part in the 400 m event but did not finish the race. All the athletes are expected to ask the authorities for their B sample tests. NADA chief Rahul Bhatnagar expressed deep anguish and concern and said they would test athletes more frequently in the run-up to the London Games. We want only clean athletes participating in London, he said.
