Nine more athletes found being over-age at 16th National Youth Championships to take tally of age-fraud cases to 50

Raipur: Nine more athletes were on Thursday disqualified after being found over-aged in the medical examination conducted by the national federation during the 16th National Youth Championships.

Three athletes in boys hammer throw, three in boys 2000m steeplechase, two in the boys pole vault and one in heptathlon were found over-age in the age verification tests on the third and final day of the event.

Thursday’s nine cases took the total number of over-age athletes from the championships, which serves as the selection trial for next month’s Asian Youth Championships at Hong Kong, to a whopping 50.

As many as 41 athletes, including promising Delhi sprinter Nisar Ahmed, were found over-age in the first two days of the championships.

Athletics Federation of India Competition Manager and secretary of the championships, Nitin Arya said he will recommend a two-year ban on the over-age athletes to the Age Verification Committee of the federation.

“We will recommend a two-year ban of these over-age athletes to the Age Verification Committee,” Arya said.

“This is the first time the AFI is doing these verifications in a large scale at this level. Very few national federations do these kinds of initiatives. The AFI wants to weed out this menace,” he added.

The Age Verification Committee is headed by Anita Rodrigues.