AFI's selection exercise set for its finale

The Athletics Federation of India (AFI ) selection committee is meeting  in New Delhi on Tuesday, July 1, the second time in less than a month, to pick the team for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. The federation has to submit its final entries by July 7.

As usual the AFI has stretched its options right up to the last minute. And quite expectedly, the composition of the relay teams have not been determined, though it has been argued, and it is most likely also, that all the four relay teams would make it to Glasgow, irrespective of whether they achieve the standards prescribed by the federation or not.

Having amassed a dozen medals, a record for India, at the last Commonwealth Games at home, and followed it up with a splendid show in the Guangzhou Asian Games, there should not have been any doubt about Indian athletics’ stature or potential this time.

But things did not go well in 2011_a year of doping scandals_ with India managing only a lone gold medal in the Asian championships at Kobe, Japan. The country just improved on that in the championships at home, at Pune last year, by taking two gold medals.

There surely was an encouraging performance by our athletes at the London Olympic Games with discus throwers Vikas Gowda and Krishna Poonia finishing within the top eight and walker K. T. Irfan ending up 10th.

Unimaginative calendar

That should have set the tempo this year. Unfortunately it has not.  The calendar has been designed unimaginatively, not for the first time in recent years, one would say, with the athletes  given a solitary chance to aim for qualification marks (actually selection criteria) in 46-48 degrees Celsius temperatures in Lucknow at the beginning of June. And a few domestic Grand Prix meets were scrapped in a year when the Asian Association also failed to organised its annual GP meets.

There was quite a bit of confusion about the standards also with two sets in circulation as the meet began in Lucknow.  The athletes should have been given at least six months’ notice about the standards and at least three meets to achieve them. Even now there is no clarity as to which standard would prevail nor is there any certainty about the relay teams being asked to clock at least timings close to the prescribed norms.

If the achievements of the Indian relay teams in the New Delhi CWG_where India took two stunning sprint relay medals_ are being taken into consideration it must be admitted that the standards in those games were rather poor because  a large number of top athletes  stayed away from the meet.

Where we stand

Assuming that there would be no relay trials to assess each team since time has practically run out on the AFI, let us just have a look at where we stand this year and from an overall perspective in the relays.

In the men’s 4x100m, the AFI standard has been kept at 39.35s, and not the incredible National record of 38.89s that India clocked at the New Delhi games for its memorable bronze medal. In subsequent years, the best Indian timings for the event have been (not necessarily by national teams) 39.94 (2011), 39.51 (2012) and 40.14 (2013).

The national sprint relay team did not finish the race at the Asian championships at Pune last year, thus depriving us of a reasonable yardstick to assess the standards and the assumed current potential.  The inter-State results show that only Krishna Kumar Rane, who won, clocked a sub-10.40 by turning in a 10.32. There was one 10.52 and two others were over 10.60s, quite ordinary by international standards.

Not in top eight

At around 39.51, going by the 2014 lists India will not figure in the top eight among Commonwealth countries.

In the men’s 4x400m, the target is a stiff 3,03.97. India’s best in recent times had been the 3,06.01 for the fifth place that the team clocked at the Pune Asians. The top eight Commonwealth teams this season have clocked below 3 mts 05 secs with the Bahamas topping the current charts at 2,57.59.

Though in the two previous Games  the bronze medal went for sub-39-second efforts, the AFI chose to  stick to a much poorer 45.25 that the Indian women clocked in Delhi as the criterion for the 4x100m. With the current form of Saradha Narayana (11.39s) and H. M. Jyothi (11.49s) this could be an attainable target but someone will need to put the girls through with a stick in hand to see how things turn out.

The Indian team minus Saradha and Jyothi clocked 45.03 at Pune for the fourth place in the last Asian championships.

The top eight Commonwealth team have timed below 45 secs this season, with Jamaica topping at 42.28s.

It is the women’s 4x400m team that has in recent years held out great hopes for India, especially after its outstanding success in 2010 when it took the gold medals in the CWG and the Asian Games. The target of 3,32.23 for the 1600 quartet should be achievable for the Indian girls. India had clocked 3, 32.26 while winning the title at the Pune Asians and it now has a sub-52s runner in M. R. Poovamma.

Where does the team stand in the CWG calculations? Jamaica and Nigeria have clocked sub-3,24 this season while another four teams have timed better than three minutes 32 seconds. It is not illogical for an Indian team to aim for a medal, though. But it will be tough to pull it off even with Poovamma and others running at their best.

Trials before departure?

Hopefully there should be no trials on the eve of the departure of the team (around second week of July)  or for that matter at the Games Village! India has had such dubious distinctions in the past. The top six from Lucknow should make it unless there is a question about fitness or an unfavourable dope report.

The argument about relay teams being given a chance at Glasgow is that they do not get opportunities and this could well be a good experience in the run-up to the Asian Games. Plus, the CWG Organising Committee is going to foot bulk of the bill for the contingents and thus there would be no necessity to plead with the Union Sports Ministry.
Still the fact remains that it is 'India' which will figure in the reports and it is the country's name that matters. And when it comes to that, the government has the power to scrutinize the credentials of a team no matter that someone else is footing the bill.

Incidentally, the ministry no longer considers selection criteria as defined in the Government guidelines though nothing had been officially scrapped. The practice seemed to have been given up when Olympic qualifications were determined by the international federations either through qualification standards or qualification competitions or through quota places. The system did not apply to CWG and Asian Games, but the ministry, in its most liberal mood, tended to ignore criteria and mostly went by the recommendations of the federations.

There is some talk of including triple jumper Renjith Maheswary in the  CWG team though he did not meet the standard of 16.83m at the Lucknow meet. If he is being given another trial then some of the others may have to be given the same opportunity though there might not be too many claimants for a slot.

Shot putter Om Prakash Singh, asked to aim a standard of 19.79 in any IAAF-recognized meet abroad has so far managed only  19.02 this outdoor season. Krishna Poonia, defending champion in women’s discus, has come close to the norm of 58.39 with a performance of 58.26 at Chula Vitsa, California. Since India is expecting two medals in women’s discus (Seema Antil has already made the cut), Poonia is certain to retain her place.

Hammer thrower Kamalpreet Singh who achieved a national record of 70.58m (to be ratified) in the US, and high hurdler Siddanth Thingalaya are also likely to be considered apart from those already selected by the committee at its meeting on June 9.

Job-seekers beefing up doping numbers?

Why is it that Indian athletics is among the toppers in the world of doping?

If you want to believe the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), it could be an “educational matter”.

Both the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) and the IAAF seem to believe that part of the problem could lie in the desire of the job-seeking athletes to do better in recruitment tests, eventually leading to positive dope tests and sanctions.

An IAAF spokesperson recently provided an exclusive interview to ‘Inside the Games’ a respected English sports website that deals with the coverage of the Olympic Games and several other multi-discipline games to explain the Indian phenomenon.

The ‘revelations’ are startling, nay unbelievable.

The gist of the story  is, lower-level athletes who compete at a recreational and social level are turning up positive for dope, adding to the overall numbers of dopers, that India has a national-level sports examination which leads to a doping control and that at the highest level Indian athletes conform to anti-doping regulations.

Many young sportspersons would wish we had a ‘national-level sports examination’, with doping control, that could pave the way for their secure employment in Central Services.

But the truth is India does not have any such system.

Dope control at recruitment centres?

The Civil Services Examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to recruit candidates for Indian Administrative Services (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS), among others, does not have a ‘sports examination’ or a ‘sports quota’ nor does it have doping control.

The Railways, Police etc have ‘sports quota’, but then again there is no centralized sports examination or for that matter doping control during selection. The Armed Forces too have their selection process but there too there is no doping control before recruitment.

A few years ago, one regional wing of the Railways did attempt to dope-test candidates appearing for recruitment at an Uttar Pradesh centre, but almost all athletes pulled out of the fray coming to know of the presence of dope-testers! Once more was the experiment allowed to run but later given up since it was felt that the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) could be breaching regulations in the WADA Code.

Except for one ‘positive’ test in hockey (eventual fate of the player not known) there were no cases reported.

Code of ethics

The code of ethics says that unless the collection of samples is part of an “anti-doping programme” the laboratory should not accept such samples. NADA is yet to spread its wings across the recruitment terrain, hassled as it is to conduct routine ‘in-competition’ and ‘out-of-competition’ tests.

So, what we do realize is the truth that there are no ‘recreational athletes’ or prospective job-seeking athletes who were subjected to doping control at an all-India sports exam among the 113 athletes mentioned in the ‘Inside the games’ report (106 as per NADA website, updated up to November 2013) and sanctioned so far since NADA came into existence in 2009.

In fact, a large majority of those 100-plus athletes are National-level athletes, quite a few of them having represented the country, and almost all of them (barring some in Police meets) having tested positive in national-level meets or out-of-competition tests.

NADA does not normally conduct tests in state-level or regional meets. Last year it turned down a request from Kerala authorities to test at the state schools athletics meet.

'Unknown, recreational athletes'

Yet, the IAAF spokesperson had been quoted here, as having said, “"All but a few of the cases involve unknown recreational and social level athletes who do not compete in the sport at even a high regional let alone national level,"

Doping control beyond the realms of competitive sports or activities not under the authority of a National Federation or an International Federation or a National Anti-Doping Organization or the World Anti-Doping Agency or the International Olympic Committee (IOC) or any agency delegated the powers by any of the principal anti-doping authorities would not be possible. It will be meaningless, too, since you cannot impose sanctions without the athlete being under the authority of a national agency.

The world over only a small percentage of the top-10 athletes is ‘caught’ in each country every year or reported for a doping offence in a major competition. The majority always comprises “low-level competitors”. India is no exception in this regard.

Thus, to state “the IAAF claim most of these cases consist of low-level competitors and, at the highest level, Indian athletes conforms to and generally applies with anti-doping regulations" is to miss the reality of dope testing.

The big fish evades

From Ben Johnson through to Lance Armstrong, the history of anti-doping is replete with instances of the “big fish” not falling into the net even as hundreds of others get caught.

It is true meets like the all-India Police championships in India provide a fair number of ‘positive’ tests, but then these are not ‘recreational athletes’. They are competing with the hope of getting into the teams for the National-level meets whereby they might get a chance to represent the country and, if they succeed, earn fame and make millions.

The departmental meets especially the Railways championships, which parade a virtual ‘who is who’ of Indian athletics, contribute to the overall growth of the country’s athletics. It would be illogical and unfair to presume that the Railways, Police, Services, Petroleum Sector, Banks etc are spending crores to run ‘recreational athletics’. Incidentally, till last year, the Railway championships did not have doping control.

No systematic cheating!

But this is what the IAAF line of thinking is, it would seem, on ‘lower-level competitors’, "They are simply not aware of anti-doping practices rather than being involved in any form of systematic cheating.

It is true that athletes could fall victim to wrong advice by coaches and peers and get into the trap of doping knowingly or unknowingly. India can do with more ‘education’ programmes on doping matters at all levels. But to think that athletes are testing positive because they have been consuming tablets given by their coaches or doctors in the garb of ‘vitamins and minerals’ is to be completely naïve.

The athletes at the national level are not only literate but also aware of anti-doping matters. The odd one might come from a rural background with limited resources and little knowledge of the internet, the WADA Code or the Prohibited List.

With that example or examples of a few such athletes alone one should not try to paint a picture of illiteracy and ignorance about doping rules and substances when it comes to Indian athletics. It is good only as a ‘defence argument’ before a panel in a doping case.

Of the 106 athletes (listed by the NADA on its website up to November, 2013) against whom sanctions were imposed during the 2009-2013 period, as many as 85 were steroid offenders. Most of them would not have consumed nandrolone, stanozolol or testosterone out of ignorance. Some of them tested positive for multiple steroids.

Lack of education

There was just one case in 2012, out of these 85 steroid offenders, that of 17-year-old Jagdish Patel, who competed in the National cross-country championships, which fell into the classification of ‘poor education’.

The hearing panel felt the circumstances of Patel being prescribed Decabolin (nandrolone) injections for the treatment of typhoid (a difficult story to believe all the same) at a health centre in Jaunpur, UP, might have come about because of his poor educational background. He was given a reduced sanction of one year.

.The immediate provocation for the latest explanation from the IAAF seems to have been the wide media coverage during the past few months of India having either topped or shared the No. 1 spot with Russia in the matter of doping suspensions in athletics.

Someone from India seems to have briefed the IAAF on the matter and in turn the IAAF has given out a completely misleading picture of doping in Indian athletics.

If one goes back to the pre-NADA days also one will find that National champions and internationals, rather than ‘recreational athletes’ had turned in positive dope tests among Indian athletes. Some of them were not even proceeded against.

Now, it is not very clear what “educational matter” is. Is it an educational matter for the IAAF? Or is it matter of poor education among athletes that is causing this rash of doping cases in Indian athletics?

Athletes have to conform to anti-doping regulations, whether at the highest level or lowest level. In India, there is only one agency that conducts dope tests, the NADA. It is the sole testing authority and the sole ‘results management’ agency for all sports including athletics.

No testing records in public domain

There is no record in public domain of the number of times top-level athletes have been tested in India. The NADA does not have a ‘whereabouts’ programme yet in athletics, meaning there is no surprise, no-advance-notice testing at home or training centres.

People who have worked at the National Institute of Sports (NIS), Patiala, have confirmed in the past that when testers arrive, athletes who want to evade do manage to evade them.

There was a classic case in 2006 when a testing team, probably deputed by the WADA landed at Patiala only to find that all the athletes who were training at the ground till then had disappeared one by one.

The dope-testing team had come chasing a batch of 40 athletes who had evaded a squad from South African Institute of Drug Free Sports (SAIDS) in January 2006 while training at Potchefstroom. The team was probably acting on behalf of the IAAF or WADA.

The IAAF and WADA carried out several ‘missions’ through the course of the rest of the year to ‘catch’ the athletes whom they were targeting. They got none at the time they were looking for them.

The IAAF included a large number of Indian athletes in its registered testing pool in 2007, much against the normal practice and tested 19 athletes, all of them multiple times. No ‘positive’ test was, however, reported.

These were not ‘recreational athletes’. They formed the ‘cream’ of Indian athletics.

--eom.