The World Anti-doping Agency’s (WADA) appeal against the Indian body (NADA) exonerating Narsingh Yadav following his positive test will be heard on Thursday, on the eve of his 74kg freestyle bout. If the appeal is upheld, he faces a four-year ban.

The biggest challenge for Narsingh is that the evidence to convince CAS that someone did lace his amino drink leading to the positive test does not look strong. The contention was accepted by the NADA panel.

Besides, he has kept shifting his claim since July 18, when he went before the NADA panel. He first claimed his food was contaminated, then pointed to the food supplement and then said his amino drink could have been laced between June 23 and June 24. Even his affidavit submitted to support his sabotage claim gives two different views. Paragraph 17 mentions that his food was contaminated while paragraph 18 claims his drink was laced.

The wrestler and his lawyer Vidushpat Singhania will need to mount a watertight defence before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) if he hopes to get a clean chit on doping.

In Narsingh’s case, the NADA panel took a sympathetic view because it felt “it was inconceivable that Narsingh would have got any significant gain from the one-time ingestion and therefore it strengthened his claim of sabotage.”