THE usual suspects were at it again at the recent Malaysia Games, and the dope busters duly zeroed in on them. Three weightlifters got caught, two from Terengganu and one from Perlis.
Weightlifting, the black sheep of Malaysian sports, manifested its dark arts again, tainting the Games like it did in its past three editions.
Yet, few people were surprised when the Anti-Doping Agency of Malaysia (Adamas) announced that three lifters tested positive for banned substances.
But furious are the Malaysian Weightlifting Federation (MWF) who have been trying for years to clean up the sport. They had wanted to bar all the lifters from Terengganu and Perlis. But the National Sports Council (NSC) disagreed, saying it was not fair to the other "innocent athletes".
Consequently, a miffed MWF decided to withdraw their technical officials, leaving NSC to run the Games with their own people. But on Saturday, the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) threw their weight behind MWF, saying NSC should have respected the move to ban the "offending states".
However, NSC contended that the other innocent athletes shouldn't be penalised just because of three errant lifters.
Azri Irfan Azhar (who eventually won a gold), said he cried upon hearing that one of his Perlis teammates had tested positive. That's because Azri was worried he wouldn't be allowed to compete by MWF.
NSC's benignant stand is understandable. As the Games is meant to be a breeding ground for new talents, a blanket ban is counter-productive.
Yet, the national federation have good reason to be harsh as they are under pressure to clean up Malaysian weightlifting following the high number of doping violations in the past five years which led to the suspension of MWF from April 2020-April 2021 by the world body. MWF even resorted to disbanding the national team last year.
But it remains a task of Herculean proportions for MWF to cleanse Malaysian weightlifting of doping which has sinisterly taken roots here.
It has reached the stage where reports of athletes taking performance-enhancing drugs are nothing new.
Alarmingly, lifters have already strayed into the "dark side of sports" at a young age in the Under-21 Malaysia Games.
Those caught will plead ignorance as always, but the mandatory four-year suspension by the international federation is heavy enough to flatten their fledging careers.
This problem weighs heavy on state associations, this is on them. They are the ones, not MWF, who must ensure that their lifters stay clean. They should do the policing against doping with zero-tolerance policy. It's just impossible for the national association and Adamas to monitor every athlete.
Amid these doping cases, it will be hard for MWF to ask the Sports Ministry to reinstate weightlifting as a "core sport" despite Malaysia winning two Commonwealth gold in August.
Weightlifting is trying to regain its "core sport" status which will enable it to receive financial support from NSC.
It has been paying the price for its misdeeds, getting dropped from the "core sports" programme in 2017 following a spate of doping cases.
After a desperate MWF imposed a "voluntary" one-year ban on all their lifters from 2018-2019, no one will want to see such a drastic measure happening again.
But if things don't improve and weightlifters keep getting caught, the sport here risks being stereotyped as a steroids show.
Chan Wai Kong is a former NST sports editor