India continues to top the global list of athletes and support personnel serving bans for doping and related offences, according to the latest list released by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), news agency PTI reported.The AIU list has 162 names from India, the highest among all countries. Kenya is second with 148 names, while Russia is third with more than 60 cases.The list includes people serving bans for doping offences. It also includes those found guilty of non-doping rule violations such as tampering, test evasion, trafficking, or failing to provide location information, as these offenses carry the same penalties as doping violations.The Athletics Integrity Unit is an independent anti-doping body created by World Athletics. Supervises international level athletes and their support staff.India first moved ahead of Kenya in April this year and was on top when the June list was released.Earlier in April, World Athletics classified India as a country with an “extremely high” doping risk after it topped the list of doping offenders in athletics for the previous two years.Following a recent decision by the AIU Council, the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) has been moved from Category B to Category A under Rule 15 of the World Athletics Anti-Doping Rules.“Unfortunately, the quality of the domestic anti-doping program is simply not proportionate to the risk of doping,” AIU President David Howman said in a statement.India has been among the top two countries for Anti-Doping Rule Violations (ADRV) in athletics from 2022 to 2025.According to AIU, India will register 48 ADRVs (second ranked) in 2022, 63 (second ranked) in 2023, 71 (first ranked) in 2024 and 30 ADRVs (first ranked) in 2025.Under the World Athletics Anti-Doping Rules, the IAU Council places member federations into different risk categories based on their doping record. Category A represents the highest risk, category B represents medium risk and category C represents low risk.Member federations in Category A must meet stricter anti-doping requirements. These include maintaining and implementing an annual testing program that complies with the International Standard for Testing and Investigations.The testing program must ensure that athletes selected for the national team in any event of the World Series of Athletics, the Olympic Games or a World Ultimate Athletics Championship, and who are not already in the Registered International Testing Pool, are adequately tested.The AIU reviews the category of each member federation every three years by examining factors such as the athletes’ doping history and the athletes’ support staff. However, he can change the category of a federation at any time during that three-year period.