AFI To Start DNA Testing Of Athletes, Conduct SRY Tests At Next Month’s Federation Cup

The Federation Cup in Ranchi next month will be the first major national championships where the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) will conduct SRY Gene tests in a bid to ensure that only biological females compete in the women's category.

The AFI will also start DNA testing of the Indian athletes to collect and preserve their data for the first time. The data will be used for research and development, prevention of injuries, training method for a particular athlete, among others.

The results and records of both the SRY tests and DNA tests will be kept confidential.

"It (SRY test) is an ongoing process. Already, it started last year for the athletes who we feel are going to be in international arena. It will just be a one-time test in a lifetime. Once these results are uploaded on World Athletics website, they will be destroyed. So there is absolute privacy," AFI spokesperson Adille Sumariwalla said in a virtual press conference on Saturday.

"In the Federation Cup in Ranchi, since athletes will be all together, a lot of them will get tested for the SRY test. Because they will all be in one place, so it's very easy to go there and pick up, send somebody so that all of them can do that," he added.

After a directive from World Athletics, the SRY gene test was introduced in India last year for all the women athletes who competed in the World Championships in Tokyo in September. The AFI sent a notice to all its affiliated units in this regard on August 13 last year to ensure compliance.

"This test (SRY tests) is a bit expensive, around Rs 8000 per test, and we've negotiated with an accredited laboratory of World Athletics. We have brought down the cost of per test to Rs 3500. The AFI will make direct payment to the lab identified by the Medical Commission of the AFI." The AFI, during its two-day Annual General Meeting in Kohima on April 14-15, also decided to introduce DNA testing of the athletes for research and prevention of injury.

"Today, there is absolutely no DNA testing data available on Indian athletes. Only data available is for Caucasian athletes. But Caucasians are very different from Indians. So if we are really looking at the future, then we have to get into R&D to see how we can prepare for the future.

"These tests will also be absolutely confidential. The important thing is at the moment we are collecting data to see how we can prevent injuries etc. It's not for talent identification.

"So we are first basically collecting data after which we will be able to sort of interpret data in a far better way for the training of our athletes." Sumariwalla, a former AFI president and currently vice president of World Athletics, said the findings of these DNA tests will lead to a lot of data such as body and muscle composition of an athlete which can be used for various purposes.

"So these data would help more towards training and prevention of injuries and also for research to make sure that you know if an injury happens, how fast is the injury recovering."

"It's an ongoing process. We start with our top athletes and slowly build our database. Most athletes will start coming down and we start moving down."

He said these tests will also help in dealing with impersonation which is "rampant" in athletics.

"So that is why there is a single agency and we have taken certain steps to ensure that person is identified and somebody else is not giving a test. And again, the athletes are not to pay anything. The cost is being picked up by us."