The Eyes, the Late TUE and the Silver Medal That Left Inam Butt's Neck

In the ruled notebook I have carried through forty-five years in this profession, there is a page I marked in red ink. It is the page about athletes I have never met, known only through video and wire reports, whose names stay in my head like an unbroken note. Inam Butt is one such name.

I first came across him in 2026, through a short film about beach wrestling released by United World Wrestling (UWW). In that narrow frame, a man with shoulders broad as a wooden door stood on white sand and took down his opponent with a single decisive scoring move. The commentator shouted: "Inam Butt, world champion!" Back then I simply thought: another quiet star of a sport few people watch. I never imagined that years later I would reopen my notes about him, not to praise a victory, but to read a doping case file.

People remember the goal; I remember the sigh behind the goalmouth. That line echoed in my head when I read that Inam Butt was about to receive a sanction from the International Testing Agency (ITA). A silver medal from the Asian Beach Games last April is about to be stripped from his neck. Not because he cheated to win. But because he took medicine for his eyes - and did not complete the paperwork in time before stepping onto the mat.

This is a story I cannot write quickly. It touches a grey zone I have observed for years: the boundary between medicine and rules, between a patient and an athlete, between public sympathy and the severity of the rulebook.

Inam Butt is not an unknown athlete. He was once a beach wrestling world champion - a discipline governed by UWW, younger and with a smaller field of nations than freestyle or Greco-Roman wrestling in the Olympic system. But "world champion" is still "world champion". In Pakistan, that title weighs like a stone tablet. Every time he stepped onto the mat, people did not just see a wrestler; they saw a country trying to put its name on the map of a sport rarely mentioned.

At an age I would guess to be mid-thirties - because the reports do not state his age, only call him a "former world champion" and a "veteran" - Inam Butt has entered a transitional phase of his career. He is not only an athlete. He is also national team coach, Secretary-General of the Pakistan Wrestling Federation (PWF), and Chairman of the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) Athletes Commission. Three roles in one person. I have seen this pattern many times in countries with thin sporting infrastructure: one person must play actor, director and ticket-seller at once. When human resources are scarce, roles stack on top of each other. And when roles stack, risks stack with them.

In April, at the Asian Beach Games, he won silver. A few months later, test results showed a prohibited substance in his body. He did not deny it. He said it was medicine for his eye condition. The ITA - the body responsible for handling anti-doping cases for many international sports organizations under delegation from WADA signatories - reviewed and accepted his explanation. They recognized he used the medication to treat an illness, not to enhance performance. One important detail: according to the sources, the ITA authorized the medication for a one-year period. In medical terms, his file was not wholly rejected.

But the story does not stop there. The notable point is that he failed to obtain the Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) in time. A TUE is a permit allowing an athlete to use a prohibited substance for a legitimate medical reason. Without it, no matter how reasonable the medication, the athlete is still in violation. And that violation is classified as "negligence". This is where I had to stop and write very slowly in my notebook.

At first reading, I, like many, found the story simple: an athlete got sick, took medicine, and was wronged. But placed beside the WADA World Anti-Doping Code, the issue sits at a different, deeper and colder layer.

Anti-doping law operates on the principle of "strict liability". That is: if a prohibited substance is in your body, you are responsible - whether intentional or not. This principle has long been established for practical reasons: if "I didn't know" were allowed as a shield, no one could prove the opposite, and the anti-doping system would collapse. But the code also leaves a crack open for mercy. If an athlete proves "no significant fault or negligence", the sanction can be reduced. And if the substance is a "specified substance" - common in legitimate medications - reduction becomes easier to accept.

According to sources cited in the press, Inam Butt is expected to receive a suspension of about two months, backdated to April. Two months. A span so short it barely affects the competitive career of a man already moving into coaching. The penalty reflects the true nature of the case: a procedural lapse, not a conspiracy to cheat. Had it been organized fraud, the number would not stop at two months.

But here is what I want to emphasize: the silver medal will still be stripped. Because forfeiture is a consequence of strict liability, independent of whether the ITA accepts the medical reason. This is the point I see many reports skimming too fast. They focus on the "light sanction", on the "good news for the athlete", forgetting that something has been lost and cannot be recovered. I picture him stepping onto the podium on the sand to receive silver, then months later watching it removed from his record. No whistle sounds for that moment. But that is the heaviest moment.

One detail in the reports made me read it over and over. On one hand, a source says he "failed to obtain the TUE in time". On the other, they say the ITA "granted permission for the medication for a one-year period". At first glance, these seem contradictory. The only reconciliation I can see is that the TUE either covered a different window or was granted retroactively after the fact. Under WADA rules, retroactive TUEs are granted only in limited circumstances - for example, emergency treatment, or situations where no time existed for prior paperwork. Most likely the ITA weighed his medical file and accepted a retroactive grant. Either way, one truth stands: had the paperwork been done on time from the start, the silver medal would not have left his neck.

I read this story in a few newspapers, and what struck me was the headline framing. "Good news for Inam Butt", "Light sanction approaching", "Athlete can compete at the Asian Games". All revolve around one person's relief. And I understand why. A man with an eye condition, taking medication, caught in the testing machine. Who would not feel for him? But placing myself in the writer's seat, I see a larger lesson beneath the news layer.

It is a lesson about the gap between medicine and rules - a gap many athletes in developing countries are not equipped to cross. In a country with strong sports medicine, every athlete has a personal doctor, a TUE file manager, a reminder system. Where resources are thin, athletes take their own medicine, buy their own medicine, and bear responsibility under a code they are trained on only a few sessions a year. The injustice is not in the verdict; it is that not everyone is taught how to avoid the verdict.

And there is one more thing I want to say plainly, even if it may upset some. Inam Butt holding three roles at once - athlete, national team coach, and federation leader - is a governance issue, not merely a personal one. When one person competes, coaches, and sits in the decision-making body, any problem of that person becomes a problem of the whole system. A conflict of interest does not need to actually occur; the mere possibility erodes public trust. That is likely why he voluntarily stepped down from two posts - PWF Secretary-General and POA Athletes Commission Chairman - pending the ruling. He said it was for the sport's interest and for fairness.

I read that and wrote it in my notebook. It is a rare act: voluntarily removing oneself from the game before being removed. But the voluntariness raises another question: if he has not yet been formally sanctioned, why leave the seat so early? Because in sport, sometimes people do not wait for the verdict. They step away to keep the institution from being stained. This is the logic of young sporting nations, where collective credibility is more fragile than an individual. It also shows something positive: awareness of conflict of interest is gradually forming, even where it was once overlooked.

The ITA is expected to publish its formal decision within a week. If things unfold as sources predict, Inam Butt will receive a short suspension, backdated to April, enough to keep his Asian Games spot as a coach. The silver from the Asian Beach Games will be stripped. And his file will carry a line no one wants. I do not call this a tragedy. Tragedy is when a person loses something they never had a chance to win. Here, Inam Butt won a medal, stood atop the world, and began coaching. The loss is a silver medal and some reputation - measurable, and therefore surmountable.

What interests me more is the lesson left behind. Will some federation, in some country, look at this case and train its athletes on TUEs? Will they separate the coach's role from the leader's role, so one athlete's lapse does not drag the whole institution into suspicion? Will an athlete with an eye condition next year be reminded: "Get the paper before taking the pill"? These questions carry no sensational headline, no glittering image, but they are what remains after the news has passed.

Every season has its own heartbeat, if only you listen. The heartbeat of this season, for me, is not the two-month ban or the silver medal. It lies in the silence between a prescription and a piece of paper. There, I hear the footsteps of many young athletes walking without knowing how narrow the door is before them. They do not need a medal to be remembered. They need a piece of paper to be safe.

I write slowly because I want to remember long, like the one who keeps time for the whole field. And I write this not to defend or condemn a man. I write to record that: in sport, sometimes the most frightening thing is not cheating, but the lateness of a single piece of paper. As for the silver medal - it has already left Inam Butt's neck. But other things, if seen in time, can still be kept.