Four-year doping ban for India's Commonwealth weightlifting champ

31-year-old tested positive for Ostarine as no country has yet allowed its use as a medicine

NEW DELHI: India's Commonwealth Games weightlifting gold medal winner Ravi Kumar Katulu has been banned for four years after failing a drug test, a top anti-doping official told AFP on Tuesday.

The 31-year-old Kumar, who won the 69kg title at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and a silver in 2014 (77kg), tested positive for Ostarine, media reports said.

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Ostarine helps increase muscle mass though is not available to the public.

"Ravi Kumar has been suspended for four years," National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) director general Navin Agarwal told AFP without naming the substance involved.

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Ostarine is a "selective androgen receptor modulator", or SARM, which doping experts say has been increasingly used as an alternative to steroids. No country has yet allowed its use as a medicine but it is widely available on the black market.

The ban is a new blow for scandal-tainted Indian weightlifting, which has been restricted to only four Olympic places -- two men and two women -- in Tokyo next year because of its high number of doping cases.