Pooja Aatmaram won a half marathon in Mumbai last November. Then, with officials waiting to conduct a routine drug test, she did what any seasoned long-distance runner knows how to do best: she ran.
Unfortunately for Aatmaram, the Athletics Integrity Unit has faster legs than she anticipated. On February 24, the AIU handed the 30-year-old Indian runner a three-year ban for evading an in-competition doping test — and published a ruling that reads, at times, like something out of a heist film.
A Race After the Race
Aatmaram had just crossed the finish line first at the Indian Oil WNC Navy Half Marathon in Mumbai on November 23, 2025, when officials selected her for a standard post-race doping test. A Doping Control Officer verbally notified her of the selection. She declined to sign the Doping Control Form.
A chaperone then escorted her from the finish line toward the Doping Control Station. That’s when things got interesting.
The AIU’s ruling describes Aatmaram as “exhausted and sweating” — which, to be fair, is how most people look after a half marathon. She collected a water bottle from a nearby stand. Then she started looking around.
“The Athlete appeared nervous and looked around,” the ruling stated. “Before reaching the DCS, the Athlete ran away from the Chaperone and in the opposite direction of the DCS.“
The chaperone gave chase. The crowd swallowed her whole. No sample was ever collected.
The race director called. The Lead Doping Control Officer called. Nobody picked up.
The “Apology”
Disciplinary proceedings opened on February 3, 2026, and Aatmaram was provisionally suspended the same day. Within six days, she wrote to the AIU to say she was sorry. On February 17, she signed a formal Admission of Anti-Doping Rule Violation and Acceptance of Consequences Form, waiving her right to a hearing.
It was, in anti-doping terms, about as clean a confession as you can get.
Under World Athletics rules, evading a drug test carries the same four-year ban as a positive test. The AIU, crediting her early admission, shaved a year off — bringing the suspension to three years, backdated to February 3. She’ll be eligible to race again in February 2029, when she’ll be 33.
