Is there a need for selection criteria for Olympics?

The ‘one-size-fits-all’ selection criteria for multi-discipline games announced the other day by the Union Sports Ministry may not solve all the problems that the government periodically faces prior to such games nor would it put a stop to arguments or litigations.

The most notable aspect of the latest announcement is, from now on, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) and the National Sports Federations (NSFs) would not be able to fall back on the plea “we were not told” about selection standards.

     “It has been decided that for participation in multi-disciplinary sports events such as Olympic Games,  Winter Olympics,  Asian Games, Commonwealth Games, Asian Indoor Games, Asian Beach Games, Youth Olympics,  Asian Youth Games, Commonwealth Youth Games, Paralympics and Para-Asian Games, the performance  of the sportspersons in the individual events during the last twelve months prior to commencement of the event should not be less than the performance achieved by the 6th position holder of the previous edition of the respective tournament in measurable sports,” stated an official release.

Before we go into the issue of selection norms for the Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games, let us look at the relevance of such yardstick for the Olympic Games.

Participation in Olympics today is determined by qualification procedures laid down by the concerned International Federations in consultation with the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The process, as in shooting for example, begins around two years ahead of the actual Games.

In shooting there is a ‘quota place’ and a ‘minimum qualification score’ (MQS). A shooter may earn a ‘quota place for a country but need not be picked eventually to be the representative of that National Olympic Committee (NOC) in the event in which he earned the quota. The National federation makes that choice.

Should the ministry standard be applied here just in case the MQS is lower than the government norm and the shooter who gained the ‘quota’ is no longer in contention because of either poor form, ill health or any other valid reason that may satisfy the federation?

Athletics to have 'invitation' places

Take for example athletics. The IAAF qualification standards for the Rio Games are yet to be announced, but going by the formula adopted for the World Championships this year there could be just one standard instead of the ‘A’ and ‘B’ standards that used to determine whether a country could enter just one athlete or two or three in each event.

This could also mean the standards, to be announced next month, would be tough, at least tougher than those ‘B’ standards of the past. In many cases they may, however, not be as tough as the ‘sixth-place standard’ of the previous Games. And the crunch comes here.

Let us take the men’s discus standard for the last Olympic Games. It was 65.0m for ‘A’ and 63.0m for ‘B’. The sixth place in Beijing Olympics in 2008 went for 65.88m. The sixth place at the London Olympics in 2012 was 65.85m, and the standard for this year’s World Championships is 65.0m. For Rio, one can expect this to be more or less the same. If the ministry’s standard is to be the determining factor then it could turn out to be tougher than that prescribed by the IAAF.

An impressive 63.62m it was that Krishna Poonia achieved for her sixth place at the London Olympics. She has not crossed 63.0m since. Nor has the Asian Games champion Seema Ankush Punia (nee Antil ) done that kind of distance since 2004. In fact after 2012 Seema has not gone beyond 62 metres. Will it then be logical to fix the ‘sixth-place’ standard of the London Olympics in women’s discus as the selection norm for Rio?

There are any number of examples, especially of interest to Indian athletes, say men’s shot put (20.84), women’s 100m (10.94s), 400m (50.17s) etc where if the ‘sixth-place’ standard is applied the dreams of becoming an Olympian might recede for the Indian athletes.

Concessions become the rule

Concessions will then have to be made, as is normally done, in order to clear the few athletes who make the grade as per the IAAF standards. The IAAF this time would also be having an ‘Olympic ranking list’ to “invite” athletes who could be missing the ‘cut’ for qualification.

The same situation may be theoretically available in swimming also, though going by the last few games it has been shown that here it is much tougher for an Indian to make the grade as per the qualification system adopted by the International Federation (FINA). In swimming, individual rankings will count towards qualification with two sets of standards. ‘A’ standard will ensure automatic qualification.

In weightlifting, on the other hand, placing achieved by teams in various championships will be the benchmark to decide allocations of quotas.

In badminton, the qualification will be based on rankings as of May 5, 2016. The singles list will go down to the 34th place, with provision for continental representation and restriction of entries per NOC. In table tennis it would be a combination of rankings and continental qualification process that will decide who gets to play in the Olympics.

Obviously you cannot have a clause that says “the sportspersons must have achieved 6th rank in the last 12 months” and stick to a government-approved criterion. What if he or she is 34^th-ranked in badminton and fulfills the rest of the criteria for qualification? (In actual terms the qualification list will go down much deeper than 34th rank in singles since entry restrictions will limit the numbers per country to just two in singles and a maximum of 16 per NOC in all events put together. The 34 quota places will also include compulsory continental representation places.)

In boxing, wrestling etc competitors will earn quota places through pre-designated championships while in team games, countries make it either through a qualification tournament or on the basis of continental quotas normally decided by the results of the continental games or championships.

Little scope for Govt criteria

In short, there is hardly any scope for any government-determined criterion to be brought into play in deciding the composition of any of the Indian teams for Olympics. Unless of course there is such an abundance of talent, say in athletics for example, that more than three athletes are vying for places in the team, all having attained the qualification standard in a particular event.

The ministry would thus do well to announce that for the Olympics, standards as prescribed by the respective International Federations, or qualification procedures already agreed upon by the IOC and the International Federations would determine the eligibility.

Every International Federation has already finalized its qualification process and the total number of athletes to be allowed in each sports discipline in Rio and the number of events in all sports had been agreed upon and announced. There is provision, where necessary, to utilize ‘unused quota places’ under various formulae in all disciplines.

Asian Games and Commonwealth Games do not have either a qualification process or minimum qualification standards. For nearly two decades the Asian Games selection criterion approved by the Sports Ministry was the ‘third-place’ norm, meaning the bronze-medal-winning mark of the previous Asian Games or the last Asian championships, whichever was higher.

In 2006, the ministry diluted this to the ‘sixth-place’ standard. In 2010 no strict standards were applied and the federations made their own norms or used their discretion in recommending names.

Last year when it applied the 'sixth-place' criteria, there were protests and controversies as the ministry cut down a 942-member contingent proposed by the IOA to 679, mainly excluding sports and individual athletes who in its opinion stood no chance of figuring anywhere. The pruning exercise was carried out by the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and carried forward by the ministry, though eventually the PMO's help was also sought.

There are no official figures about the eventual size of the contingent since a few teams managed to get the clearance of the courts and a few others, despite being initially rejected by the ministry, made it to Incheon. This happens all the time of course.

The announcement of a clear-cut criterion at this point is thus welcome. This may or may not prevent last-minute recommendations and/or manipulation of criteria, arguments and counter arguments the next time. But the message is clear_achieve the standards or otherwise lose your chance to make it to the Asian Games.

Low weightlifting standards in CWG

There is a rush to gain inclusion in Indian teams in sport like weightlifting and wrestling at the CWG level since the standards are low while that in athletics and swimming, in contrast, are quite high, comparable to world levels in a majority of the events. The uniform ‘sixth-place’ criterion thus becomes illogical in respect of CWG.

The sixth place in the 2014 CWG men's 56kg class in weightlifting had a total of 225kg while the sixth place finisher at the 2014 National lifted 233kg. Not all weight categories in men show this level of disparity but the Commonwealth standards are pretty low.

Among women, the sixth place in Glasgow in the 48kg went for 142kg, the same as that was achieved by the fifth-place finisher in the Indian National championships last year. In the 53kg class the disparity is even wider with the sixth place in CWG showing 173kg, the same that the seventh-place lifter totalled in the 2014 National.

A method will have to be devised to toughen the standards for CWG in such sport where the standards are much lower than our National level, keeping in mind of course the legal issues that may crop up as they did last year for the clearance of the teams for the Asian Games.

Many Indian teams fared poorly in the Incheon Asian Games. A comparison of the claims made by such teams or individual athletes, as projected by the NSFs, and their actual performance in the Games would help the SAI keep a data bank that can come in handy at the time of future clearances. The SAI and the ministry would also do well to remember that once the stage has crossed for getting accreditation for individual sportspersons it would be futile to attempt to stop them. That means a timeline, like the one fixed by the International Federations for Olympic qualification, will need to be drawn up by the SAI to process proposals for the Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games. But who will reform the IOA and the NSFs?

One last point. The last time the PMO shot down 'no-cost-to-Government' formula that is adopted by the Sports Ministry to refuse official funding for teams that in its opinion fail to meet the standards. There is still a mention of 'no cost' in the ministry circular this time. Sticking to a policy is often a difficult exercise. Eventually if everyone gets official funding, it becomes unfair to those who have been left out because of "poor standards".
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(Amended-14-03-2015)