Indian para-badminton player Pramod Bhagat, a reigning Paralympic and world champion in the SL-3 category, has been handed a crushing blow to his career. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has imposed an 18-month ban on Bhagat for three whereabouts failures, effectively ending his hopes of defending his Paralympic gold medal in the upcoming Paris Games. The ban, announced by the Badminton World Federation (BWF) on August 13, will remain in effect until September 1, 2025.
Bhagat expressed his deep disappointment with the decision, stating that he was confident of defending his title in Paris. “I didn’t expect that the decision would go against me. I was defending my Tokyo Olympic gold medal. Since January 2023, I have won a lot of titles. My performance was really good, and I was sure that I would defend my medal. But the decision was heartbreaking for me. My four years of training became worthless. I am 36, and this medal was really important to me,” Bhagat told ANI.
The CAS Anti-Doping Division found Bhagat guilty of breaching the BWF anti-doping regulations on three separate occasions within a 12-month period. While acknowledging the failures, Bhagat attributed the third instance to a technical glitch during the submission process, emphasizing that the actual test itself was not the issue. “I didn’t think that due to a technical issue, the decision would go against me. The last test was not my mistake. When I submitted it in January, it was successful. After submission, there was no issue as well. It was not my mistake. It was a technical fault. If you put this issue on an athlete, then it demoralises that athlete. The legal team is working on it, but changing the decision is very difficult because there is not much time left,” he added.
With the Paralympics scheduled to begin on August 28, Bhagat and his legal team are actively exploring options to overturn the ban. However, Bhagat remains sceptical about the possibility of a timely resolution, drawing parallels to the delays experienced by Indian wrestler Vinesh Phogat in a similar case. The clock is ticking, and Bhagat’s dreams of defending his Paralympic gold medal are hanging in the balance.
