Why is Kanak Jha not playing in World Table tennis events?

Published on 28 July 2023 3 minutes 3 minutes

You probably heard about a 16 years old kid, Kanak Jha, who became the youngest male table tennis player to compete at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and represent United States. But he has been missing from international table tennis events for quite some time and he has been banned.

Kanak Jha is considered one of the most promising table tennis players in the United States and has achieved notable successes in his career. Kanak Jha has also represented the United States in various international tournaments and has won several medals in the Pan American Games and the Pan American Championships.

Why is Kanak Jha banned?

The reason for Kanak Jha’s one-year ban from table tennis is that he committed three whereabouts doping failures within a 12-month period. The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) claimed that Jha missed tests on three different occasions: March 18, June 2, and September 4 of the previous year.

While Jha disputed the last of those missed tests, alleging that the doping control officer did not act reasonably, an independent arbitrator from the American Arbitration Association rejected his claim.

“The tester did not dial the +1 country code for a US phone” said Kanak Jha as the form did not mention about a country code.

The arbitrator found that Jha had committed an anti-doping rule violation, resulting in a one-year ban from December 1, 2022, the date of his provisional suspension. Despite the violation, it was noted that Jha’s case did not involve any attempt to evade testing or the use of drugs. This being his first anti-doping rule violation, the arbitrator considered a two-year ban to be excessive and instead imposed a one-year suspension.

The USADA emphasized the importance of athletes providing accurate whereabouts information for effective anti-doping measures, as unannounced out-of-competition testing is crucial to maintaining clean sport. It was mentioned that over 2,000 athletes in the USADA testing pools successfully comply with the whereabouts requirements throughout the year.

When will the ban lift ?

Based on the date on ban, he was declared ineligible for 12 months from December 1, 2022, which means that his ban would be in effect until December 1, 2023. We hope to see Kanak Jha playing in Table tennis events soon as he is one of the most talented players from USA and he is missing the event for one simple mistake in a form.