New Delhi, Jan 2 (IANS): The National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) will be focusing on dope tests for major sports events in 2020.

Sharing its roadmap for the new year, NADA tweeted on Thursday: "In this coming year, the National Anti-Doping Agency will be focusing on running dope tests for major sports events including National and International Games."

The agency will be running doping tests for major games like Khelo India Youth Games starting January 10, Khelo India University Games, Tokyo Olympics and National Games.

NADA further said it aims to expand its reach to ensure sports remain free of the ills of doping.

In 2016, the agency collected a total of 2,831 samples, out of 2,699 were urine and 132 blood. A total of 3,174 samples were collected in 2017 (2,964 urine and 210 blood), 3,979 samples in 2018 (3,716 urine and 263 blood) and 4,170 samples in 2019 (3,887 urine and 283 blood).

"There has been an increase in the blood and urine samples collected during these years. NADA aims to expand its reach to ensure sports remain free of the ills of doping," NADA said.

The agency also revealed that in 2019, amongst all the cases tested for doping samples, a total of 157 were found positive for the presence of a prohibited substance.

Recently, 2017 Commonwealth Championships silver medallist weightlifter Seema was handed with a four-year ban while Asian silver medallist boxer Sumit Sangwan was handed a one-year suspension by NADA for failing the dope Test.