Rio Olympics: Verdict on wrestler Narsingh Yadav by NADA likely today

Delhi: Whether there is any chance for grappler Narsingh Yadav to participate in the upcoming Rio Olympics is likely to be decided by the National Anti Doping Agency (NADA) on Monday.

On July 30, NADA had deferred its final verdict on the doping scandal.

The hearing had gone on for marathon eight hours.

NADA DG Navin Agarwal had said then that the panel had studied a lot of documents and would give its verdict on Monday.

"The panel again sat today and reviewed the whole case. The panel will give its verdict at 4 pm on Monday," Agarwal had told reporters.

"The reason for marathon meeting and the delay in declaring the verdict as a lot of documents needed to be studied and the arguments have been lengthy. We are hopeful that justice will be done," he had added, as per PTI.

Narsingh's chances of participating in the Olympics came under a cloud when he returned a positive result for a dope test conducted by the NADA on June 25. 

Following this, Narsingh, who was selected to represent the country in the men's 74kg freestyle category ahead of two-time Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar, was handed a provisional suspension.

During the earlier two days of hearing, he and his lawyers had presented their case on the failed dope test, which, according to them, was a conspiracy against the grappler, but NADA's legal team gave its arguments against the sabotage theory before the disciplinary committee.

Narsingh's hopes of competing in the Olympics had faded further on Wednesday after the wrestler failed a second dope test, which was conducted on him on July 5. 

Moreover, the wrestler's final effort to establish a conspiracy theory also fell flat as one of the two cooks, who had claimed to have seen a junior wrestler mixing something in Narsingh's food at the SAI Sonepat centre's mess, changed his testimony in front of the three-member NADA panel.

The panel had summoned two cooks on the request of Narsingh's lawyer Vidushpat Singhania.

Earlier, the argument put forth by NADA was that Narsingh was not eligible for remission, which he had been asking for, because he failed to establish that he did not commit any fault or negligence.

Meanwhile, the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) announced that Parveen Rana would replace Yadav in the squad for Rio de Janeiro.

(With PTI inputs)