Boxer Parveen Hooda's suspension leads to India losing women's 57kg Olympic quota

Indian boxers will have to put up a fresh fight in the final round of qualifiers to secure Olympic quota in the women’s 57kg category after Parveen Hooda was suspended by the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) on Friday for three Whereabouts Failures during a 12-month period.

Hooda’s 22-month suspension by WADA resulted in India losing the quota in the 57kg category, creating an embarrassing situation for Indian boxing.

The 2022 World Championships bronze medallist had clinched Paris quota by winning bronze at the Asian Games in Hangzhou last year. Hooda, however, failed to declare her whereabouts from April 2022 to March 2023, which resulted in the Haryana pugilist getting disqualified from this year’s Olympics that take place between 26 July and 11 August as per WADA’s rules.

“Parveen Hooda has been suspended for 22 months by the International Testing Agency (ITA) for Whereabouts Failures,” the Boxing Federation of India (BFI) said in a media release.

Hooda, however, will not be serving the full duration of the suspension as the sentence had been backdated following discussions between the BFI and concerned agencies. The 24-year-old from Rohtak will effectively be out of action for 14 months after the updated sentence.

“Pursuant to multiple discussions and representations, the ITA has proposed a sanction on Parveen, entailing the imposition of an ineligibility period of 22-months, which has been now backdated by eight months as compared to initial suspension period of 24 months backdated by six months. In essence the sanction is of 14 months, starting from May 17, 2024.”

India currently have Olympic quotas in three categories after Hooda’s suspension — Nikhat Zareen, Preeti and Lovlina Borgohain having done so in the 50kg, 54kg and 75kg categories respectively.

The final Olympic qualifier in boxing is set to begin on 24 May in Bangkok, and India will have the opportunity to secure quota in that category so long as they have reserves who had been registered by 11 April.

Jasmine Lamboriya and Manju Bamboriya had been named reserves in the 60kg and 66kg categories respectiely, with the former now likely to compete for the 57kg quota in the qualifiers in Bangkok.

“….which means that only two boxers, named as reserves in 60kg and 66 kg category, are eligible to compete in Bangkok,” the BFI stated.

“We exhaustively pursued every avenue and explored all potential solutions to safeguard the Olympic quota and supported Praveen against potential suspension,” BFI secretary Hemanta Kalita said.

“Our proactive outreach to ITA and WADA emphasized the unintentional nature of the boxer’s actions, particularly given her father’s terminal illness,” he added.

Hooda, however, won’t be the only one getting the blame for the whereabouts violation and subsequent suspension that has brought humiliation for Indian boxing.

It would’ve been the result of negligence on the part of the athlete as well as the BFI, as a national federation is notified of an athlete failing to disclose his/her whereabouts and is then expected to push the athlete to do the needful.

“The High Performance Director, the federation and Parveen, all three were aware about the situation but none of them took action,” a source privy to the development told PTI.

“No one took responsibility thinking the other will do something about it. Otherwise how will such a thing happen. It has never happened before,” he added.