Remember Abhishek Pal, the Indian athlete who was dropped from the Asian Games squad for a doping taint? The long-distance runner, who was first issued with an atypical finding (ATF) after his sample showed presence of clomiphene, a drug used to treat female infertility, has surfaced again. This time as a competitor at the ongoing 65th National Open Athletics Championships in the 10,000 metres race.Railways Shivaji Madappa won the gold medal, while Delhi’s Gaurav Mathur and Madhya Pradesh’s Vinod Singh finished second and third, respectively. Representing Railways, Pal finished fourth with a timing of 30:38.54 seconds.What is interesting is the fact that the same Athletics Federation of India (AFI) — that dropped him from competing in 10,000m and 5,000 m at Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games — has allowed him to take part in the domestic meet.As per sources, Pal was allowed to take part in the meet as his unique identification number is yet to be blocked.“He has not been provisionally suspended and so he can take part in the Delhi meet,” said a source.Pal, has not been served with a provisional suspension yet, but has been issued a notice of charge for the adverse analytical finding (AAF) by the National Anti Doping Agency (NADA) on September 2, 2026. Pal’s sample, collected on May 10, 2026, during the Indian Athletics Series in Chennai, showed a concentration lower than two nanograms per millilitre (2 ng/mL), the minimum reporting level set by the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA).Pal did not accept the sanction and chose to challenge the notice.Since then Pal’s lost his appeal to get the notice of charge quashed. His counsel, Parth Goswami, who is also the secretary of Delhi State Athletics Association in the appeal had challenged NADA by saying the AAF issued was “founded on an investigation that fell short of the mandatory investigation required under WADA technical letter (TL26) and international standard for result management.”He further stated that the NADA issued the AAF based on a single interview with the athlete, where he stated that he was a strict vegetarian.NADA in its defence said that since the athlete does not consume meat or eggs, there was no need to investigate the possibility of contamination.