NEW DELHI: India’s leading female taekwondo player, Kashish Malik, who had finished fifth in the women’s 57kg category at the Jakarta Asian Games in 2018, has been banned for two years by the NADA’s anti-doping disciplinary panel (ADDP) after she returned positive for diuretics and a masking agent in an out-of-competition testing in Lucknow earlier this year.
The 22-year-old Delhi girl was handed the ban from the date of her ADDP order, which came into effect earlier this month, it’s been learnt.
According to sources, Kashish, whose fifth-place finish was the best-ever by an Indian taekwondo practitioner at the Jakarta Asiad, had pleaded before the panel that the banned substance found in her system was because of certain medicines prescribed by a doctor for treatment.
However, it’s been learnt that Kashish hadn’t applied for the Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) certificate for the use of prohibited substances and methods. She has the option of challenging her ban period before the anti-doping appeal panel (ADAP).
Kashish, who currently trains under former world champion Sayed Hassan Rezay at the Peace Taekwondo Academy and is supported by Virat Kohli Foundation, has won several international medals for India, including gold at the Malaysia Open in Kuala Lumpur in 2018 and South Asian Games (SAG) in Kathmandu in 2019.
In her first international assignment in 2018, the Indian had returned with a silver medal at the Fujairah Open in UAE.
