Ravi Kumar Katulu India’s Commonwealth weightlifting champion is banned for 4 years!

Ravi Kumar Katulu who brought the gold medal for India in the 2010 Commonwealth Games has been banned for four years after he tested positive for Ostarine, drug.

Indian weightlifter Ravi Kumar Katulu, after failing a drug test, is now banned for four years as reported by a top anti-doping official. The Commonwealth Games weightlifting gold medalist tested positive for Ostarine, a drug used to increase muscle mass.

National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) director general Navin Agarwal, said, “Ravi Kumar has been suspended for four years,” and didn’t name the substance involved. Ostarine is also a drug that is not available to the public. It is a “selective androgen receptor modulator” which is currently used as an alternative to steroids, confirms doping experts. No other country is allowed to even use it as a medicine and it is widely available on the black market.

This ban comes as a blow to Kumar, who won the 69kg title at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and a silver in 2014, as it is restricted to only four Olympic places, two men and two women which will take place in Tokyo next year due to the high number of cases involving doping.

Ravi Kumar Katulu was originally a bodybuilder who took up weightlifting after his trained counselled him to turn his attention towards weightlifting. He has also won various State, National, and International awards in a very short span of time.