NEW DELHI: India’s judo campaign at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow has suffered another setback. A day after 73kg judoka Arun Kumar was ruled out after failing a dope test, CWG silver medallist Tulika Maan has been withdrawn from the Glasgow Games after coming under scrutiny over alleged whereabouts failures.TimesofIndia.com spoke to Judo Federation of India (JFI) president Mukesh Kumar, who confirmed the development and said the matter is being looked into.Confirming the development, Kumar said: “She didn’t tell us about her whereabouts. We are looking into this. As per the rules, an athlete needs to disclose his/her whereabouts to NADA. She didn’t.”“She has been called to the NADA office. She has gone there. We will talk to her. Let’s see what decision comes up. But as an athlete, she had to disclose her whereabouts so that testing could be done on time,” he said.Tulika is one of India’s strongest medal hopes in judo at the Glasgow Games. She won a silver medal in the women’s +78kg category at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. The Indian judo competition at the 2026 Games is scheduled from July 31 to August 2.The development comes just a day after when 73kg judoka Arun was declared ineligible following an adverse analytical finding in an out-of-competition test conducted by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA).Arun had enjoyed a rapid rise in recent years. He won gold at the 2023 Macau Junior Asian Cup, followed by another gold at the 2025 Taipei Asian Open and a bronze medal at the Hong Kong Asian Open. Earlier this year, he finished seventh at the prestigious Tashkent Grand Slam, earning his maiden Commonwealth Games selection.
When Indian athletes faced similar cases
This is not the first time an Indian athlete has faced action over whereabouts failures.Sprinter Hima Das received a 16-month retrospective suspension by NADA after recording three whereabouts failures within a 12-month period (suspension ran from July 22, 2023, to November 21, 2025).Boxer Parveen Hooda was suspended by the International Testing Agency (ITA) for whereabouts failures (suspension ran from April 2022 and March 2023). She was also stripped of her bronze medal from the 2022 Asian Games.
What is the whereabouts system?
The whereabouts system is an anti-doping rule that allows authorities to carry out random, no-notice out-of-competition testing on elite athletes.Athletes who are part of a Registered Testing Pool (RTP) must submit their location details every three months through WADA’s ADAMS platform or the Athlete Central app.They must also provide a fixed 60-minute time slot each day during which they will be available at a specific location for testing.If a doping control officer visits during that one-hour window and cannot find the athlete, it may be recorded as a missed test. Failing to submit or update location details is known as a filing failure.Under anti-doping rules, any combination of three missed tests or filing failures within a rolling 12-month period is treated as an anti-doping rule violation and can lead to a ban of one to two years.
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