Neeraj Chopra inducted into IAAF registered testing pool

Neeraj Chopra, the sensational World Junior javelin champion, has been included in the latest (Sept 21) Registered Testing Pool (RTP) of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).

Chopra is the first Indian to be included in the IAAF RTP since 800m runner Tintu Luka and triple jumper Arpinder Singh went out of the list in September, 2015.

Chopra, just 18, became the World Junior champion at Bydgoszcz, Poland, on 23 July this year with a junior world record throw of 86.48m. It was the Indian senior national record as well.

Till the time he nailed the under-20 world title and the world junior record, Chopra had tried to attain the Olympic qualification standard of 83.00m, but in vain. An attempt was made by the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) to get his name cleared for participation in the Rio Olympics as a special case. (Under-20 and senior athletes use the same javelin weighing 800gm).

However, the IAAF expectedly rejected the request, pointing out that there were other requests also for consideration after the expiry of the qualification deadline on July 11 and it was not possible to entertain any of them. There is no provision for a wild card entry in Olympics.

Chopra has been tipped to become India’s future Olympic champion. At the rate at which he has improved, the Chandigarh youngster surely looks set to scale greater heights.

The ‘whereabouts’ requirements

Being in the IAAF RTP, Chopra will now need to provide his daily ‘whereabouts’ to the IAAF on a quarterly basis. Failure to be present at a designated spot given by the athlete on a particular day for a one-hour period to be available for dope-testing may attract a ‘whereabouts failure’. Three ‘whereabouts failures’ (that may include ‘whereabouts filing failure’ also) can lead to a suspension of two years.

Chopra had been on a three-month training programme, along with a batch of Indian athletes, in Spala, Poland this season while aiming for the Olympic qualification and preparing for the World under-20 Championships. He could not, however, reach the standard for Rio.

The closest that he reached prior to Olympic qualification deadline was the 82.23m (equaling National record) in winning the South Asian Games title in Guwahati in February (Olympic qualification standard 83.00). After that he had marks of 79.54, 79.51, 79.73, 75.52, 77.60, 78.71 and 79.23 (July 10, a day before the OG deadline). He is currently coached by Australian Garry Calvert.

It  was surprising the past year that despite India having been No. 3 in the matter of dope offenders in 2013 and 2014, with athletics in the country topping the lists, with 28 and 29 respectively, the IAAF did not include an Indian athlete in its registered pool. (Russia topped the overall lists in both the years.)

Post-2010 Asian Games the IAAF had placed as many as ten Indian athletes in its registered pool. The list kept changing through subsequent months till in April 2014 all Indians were removed from the list. Tintu Luka, brought in first in March 2012, was brought back along with Arpinder in September 2014.

IAAF tests at least 20 Indians

Despite the apparent leeway given to Indian athletes in the matter of IAAF registered pool (it was always explained that priorities had to lie elsewhere with world’s top-ranked athletes and those who were in the regular watch-list), the IAAF did test a surprisingly large number of (at least) 20 Indian athletes in 2015.

Again, quite surprisingly, the man who topped the IAAF testing numbers happened to be a lesser-known shot putter, Kashish Khanna. A University champion in 2011, Khanna had won the Open title in 2014 apart from coming third in the inter-State meet in 2012. He was tested more than four times by the IAAF last year and he was the lone athlete to fail an IAAF test. He was given a two-year sanction by the National Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel (NADDP) for a steroid offence.

Prominent among the others to have been tested up to three times by the IAAF in 2015 were:  Shot putter Inderjeet Singh (now under provisional suspension for a doping offence reported by NADA), walkers Gurmeet Singh, Manish Singh Rawat, Chandan Singh and Baljinder Singh, triple jumper Arpinder Singh, Tintu Luka, steeplechaser Sudha Singh, quarter-milers Debashree Majumdar, Anu Raghavan, Sini Jose, Anju Thomas and Priyanka Mondal, and javelin thrower Annu Rani.

Those who were not tested by the IAAF in out-of-competition tests in 2015 included steeplechaser Lalita Babar, marathon runners O. P. Jaisha and Kavta Raut; sprinters Dutee Chand and Srabani Nanda; quarter-milers Ashwini Akkunji, Priyanka Panwar, Nirmala Sheoran, Jauna Murmu, Anilda Thomas and M. R. Poovamma; triple jumper Renjith Maheswary, long jumpers Kumaravel Premkumar and Ankit Sharma, sprinter Amiya Mallick, discus throwers Seema Antil and Krishna Poonia, and shot putter Manpreet Kaur (Sr).

NADA registered pool

The National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) started a ‘whereabouts’-based testing programme in May, 2015 with an initial list of 41 athletes in track and field in its domestic pool. Yet, by May this year NADA found itself stymied in its efforts as a majority of the athletes in its list went abroad for training towards Rio Olympics preparations.

However, NADA managed to bring in charges against three leading athletes this season, with Inderjeet failig an out-of-competition test and sprinter Dharambir Singh and quarter-miler Priyanka Panwar testing positive in competitions.  All three are currently under provisional suspension.

A larger ‘whereabouts’ pool in athletics and closer monitoring should be NADA’s aim in the coming season while the IAAF could be expected to co-ordinate with other agencies testing at remote locations where Indian athletes could be training in the World Championships year.

With a few international statisticians raising doubts about some of the marks achieved by Indian athletes at home and abroad towards Olympic qualification, it is imperative to keep a close watch on anti-doping efforts in the coming season in Indian athletics.

Anything to become an Olympian!

The 2016 athletics season in India is still continuing. And as it invariably happens, the international calendar has practically wound up barring the road races.

The Olympic year expectedly produced a string of “world-class performances” by Indian athletes. Administrators and fans alike expressed their happiness at the perceived strides the Indian athletes had made in the run-up to the Rio Games.

Coaches and administrators were not wary of forecasting “several” places in the final at Rio for the Indian athletes.

Can there be a medal, too? The question naturally came up. 

They did not rule it out, pointing out that a medal depended on a given day’s form. Anything could happen, they assured us. The Sports Authority of India (SAI) looked at a few charts and graphs and came to the conclusion a medal or two was possible.

The biggest Indian athletics squad numbering 36 (two athletes, shot putter Inderjeet Singh and sprinter Dharambir Singh, were suspended following positive dope results) in the largest Indian contingent for the Olympics, at 118, was entered.   Some of them spent months abroad in training camps that ostensibly provided ideal weather, accommodation and food.

Beats the Sydney number

The 36 beat the 29 that went to Sydney for the 2000 Games. Just as in Sydney, where K. M. Beenamol was the lone Indian athlete to cross the first round, in Rio, too, only one athlete came through the preliminary round. Steeplechaser Lalita Babar was a proud 10^th-place finisher in the Olympics.

Racewalker Manish Singh Rawat, with a 13^th-place finish in 20km, and marathon runners T. Gopi and Kheta Ram, finishing 25th and 26th, were other honourable exceptions from the Indian side in an otherwise dismal performance.

So, how did so many of our athletes record ‘phenomenal performances’ at home and abroad in order to qualify for Olympics and then fail so stunningly in Rio?

Some of us had reservations about at least some of the marks achieved by Indian athletes prior to Rio.  Were these performances “genuine” was a question that came up rather disturbingly.

No additional athletes, barring steeplechaser Sudha Singh had qualified from domestic meets this year in April and May, and through competitions in Poland, Chinese Taipei and Kyrgyzstan till the last week of June. Then the rush started culminating with the Bengaluru meet on the final day of Olympic qualification on July 11.

Now, less than a month after the Olympics, a few of the prominent international statisticians have also raised doubts about such performances. Not just from India but from other countries as well.

Mirko Jalava, who runs the very popular, highly acclaimed, Tilastopaja.com, Finland, that provides huge statistical data on athletics has listed as many as 39 results under the ‘doubtful/suspicious’ category that led to Olympic qualification.  

Three of the ‘suspicious’ results are by Indian athletes, two at Almaty, Kazakhstan in June and one at Bengaluru in July.

The doubtful Indian marks

The Indian marks listed are the 8.19m in long jump by Ankit Sharma and the 23.03s for the 200m by Srabani Nanda in Almaty, and the 17,30m achieved by Renjith Maheswary in triple jump in Bengaluru.

One more Indian result, that of 11.24s for the 100m by Dutee Chand in Almaty, has been mentioned among others as a possible consequence of a “faulty” timing system in the Kozanov memorial meet in the Kazakhstan city.

The only “consolation” for Indians in this assessment could be the fact that many other countries with several “doubtful” results have been listed by Jalava who has forwarded his list to the working group appointed by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) to look into these qualification marks achieved apparently through dubious means.

Mercifully, even the Athletics Federation of India (AFI), one heard, has raised “doubts” about some of the marks achieved by Indian athletes towards Rio qualification in its post-Olympics assessment.

“My suspicions are purely statistical, nothing to do with doping.,” Jalava wrote in an e-mail to this correspondent the other day.

Tilastopaja removes all doubtful results

Tilastopaja.com has removed all the ‘suspicious’ results including those by Dutee Chand (11.30s and 11.24s for 100m in Almaty on June 25) and Dharambir Singh (20.45s for 200 in Bengaluru on July 11) and categorized them as “irregular/doubtful”.  (Dharambir’s timing in any case is likely to be disqualified following his positive dope test)

These marks will no longer be listed at least on Tilastopaja as personal best or season best or national record (where applicable).

What decision the IAAF would take in respect of such doubtful marks is yet to be seen. The IAAF website does list all these marks as valid and regular.

Jalava’s “suspicious” list comprises nine athletes from Uzbekistan, six from Kazakhstan, five from Armenia, four from Moldova, three each from India and Iran, two from Georgia and one each from Bermuda, Bahrain, Costa Rica, Egypt, Jamaica, Saudi Arabia and Samoa.

A total of 52 results (not necessarily Olympic qualification marks) have been flagged by Jalava as “suspicious” with Kazakhstan alone contributing 13 of them, all but one from Almaty!

The Finn makes these observations in respect of Indian athletes:

Men: Long jump Name                      Country                                             Standard Ankit Sharma IND                                8.19 -16 Suspicious mark: 8.19 +0.1 Almaty KAZ 26 June 2016 Best outside suspicious: 7.92 0.0 Patiala IND 6 May 2016 Perf Rio 2016: 7.67 +0.1 Rio de Janeiro BRA 12 August 2016 Sequence of marks 2016: 7.89 – 7.66 – 7.81 – 7.76 – 7.92 – 7.67 – 8.19 (incl. 8.19-8.17-8.14) – 7.76 – 7.67 (Rio) Reason for suspicion: No jumps further than 7.92 outside Almaty in 2016, then suddenly three marks at 8.14 or better. Triple jump Renjith Maheswary IND                     17.30 -16 Suspicious mark: 17.30 +0.9 Bangalore IND 11 July 2016 Best outside suspicious: 16.56 Hyderabad IND 29 June 2016 Perf Rio 2016: 16.13 +0.5 Rio de Janeiro BRA 15 August 2016 Sequence of marks 2016: 16.45 – 16.16 – 16.35 – 16.47 – 16.56 – 16.43 – 17.30 (incl. 17.30-16.93-16.75-16.55) – 16.13 (Rio, incl. 16.13-15.99-15.80). Reason for suspicion: Result so much further than other meetings in 2016. Result achieved on the last day of qualification, July 11th. Women: 200m Srabani Nanda IND                               23.07 -16 Suspicious mark: 23.07 +0.7 Almaty KAZ 26 June 2016 Best outside suspicious: 23.36 0.0 New Delhi IND 30 April 2016 Perf Rio 2016: 23.58 -0.1 Rio de Janeiro BRA 15 August 2016 Sequence of marks 2016: 23.91 – 23.43 – 23.85 – 23.57 – 23.70 – 23.36 – 23.39 – 24.85 – 23.55 – 23.84 – 23.70 – 23.83 – 23.34 – 23.07 – 23.58 (Rio). Reason for suspicion: Entry standard achieved in Almaty is out of sequence. Three previous meets 23.84-23.70-23.83, then suddenly 23.07 and back to 23.58 in Rio. Looks like a possible timing problem, like in the W 100m in the same meet: Three best Almaty vs Rio: Zyabkina KAZ 22.66-23.34 Safronova KAZ 22.95-23.29 Nanda IND 23.07-23.58.

 The explanation regarding Dutee Chand’s timing can be made out from the following observations in respect of Kazakh Rima Kashafutdiinova’s 100m timing in Almaty:

Rima Kashafutdinova KAZ 1 11.31 -16 Suspicious mark: 11.31 +1.2 Almaty KAZ 25 June 2016 Best outside suspicious: 11.63 0.0 Bishkek KGZ 18 June 2016 Perf Rio 2016: 11.84 +0.3 Rio de Janeiro BRA 12 August 2016 Sequence of marks 2016: 11.67 – 11.63 – 11.46 – 11.31 – 11.84 (Rio). Reason for suspicion: Bettered 100m personal best by 0.32 seconds in one competition, which is impossible. There is a possibility, that the timing was faulty in Almaty in this race. Almaty vs Rio Zyabkina KAZ Almaty 11.15- Rio 11.69 Chand IND 11.24-11.69 Jassim BRN 11.26-11.72 Kashafutdinova KAZ 11.31-11.84. The differences are 0.44, 0.45, 0.46 and 0.52. Zyabkina’s best before Almaty was 11.27 in May and she ran 11.38 in Bishkek just a week before the 11.15. She then continued with 11.63 in France before 11.69 in Rio.

Jalava’s compilation gives a deep insight into the possible manipulation that goes on to facilitate Olympic qualification.

Bahrain’s Hajar Saad Al-Khaldi for example is shown to have improved her PB in women’s 100m from 11.91s in 2015 to 11.28s in Sofia, Bulgaria, on June 18 this year (OG standard 11.32s). She clocked 11.59s in Rio.

Moldovan woman shot putter Dimitriana Surdu jumped from her PB of 15.04 in 2015 to 17.85 in May this year to cross the Olympic standard of 17.75. Then came back to her original standard of 15.25 in Rio.

Discus thrower Nataliya Strutulat of Moldova did a 61.85 at home (OG standard 61.00). Her best outside her home this season was 57.52m. Predictably she slumped to 53.27m in Rio.

Hubbeling also raises doubts

 Meanwhile, Heinrich Hubbeling, the German statistician who brings out the annual Asian athletics rankings, has also brought out a list of ‘doubtful’ results. But this list is small, 13, and it does not mention an Indian result.

Hubbeling said some of the qualifiers managed standards in preliminaries but stayed away from finals.  A few of them tried to hide their form in Olympics by not finishing their competitions there.

Like Jalava, Hubbeling has also removed “doubtful” results from his top lists and is waiting to see whether the IAAF would be doing something in this respect.

Hubbeling’s list (matching that by Jalava) comprises five athletes each from Uzbekistan and Armenia and one each from Georgia, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.

A few samples from the list:

Uzbek Leonid Andreyev, a 33-year-old decathlete whose best was 7879 in 2014 achieved 8250 points in Tashkent (Olympic standard 8100) including five individual personal bests with that in high jump going up from 1.99m to 2.09m!

Amaliya Sharoyan, a woman long jumper from Armenia, registered 6.72m (standard 6.70m) at Elbasan, Albania, on May 21, did 6.15 at Pitesti, Romania, on June 6 and then managed 5.95 in Rio Olympics!

Georgian shot putter Benik Abramyan recorded 20.54 in Almaty on May 24 to improve his PB from 18.48 in 2011. (OG standard 20.50m). He had 18.72m in the Olympics. Incidentally he had served a two-year doping ban from 2012.

Uzbek woman 400m hurdler Natalya Asanova improved from her 2012 PB of 56.85 to 56.19 (OG standard 56.20). She had marks between 58 and 59 during the season except for one more of 56.33 in Tashkent three days before her Dushanabe PB. She timed 62.37s in Rio!

All these indicate, not for the first time though, how Olympic qualification standards are achieved in athletics. You can qualify through any national-level or any small international-level meet. Unlike in swimming, for example, there is no requirement of a pre-designated meet.

The AFI could arrange a few international relay races at short notice in Hyderabad and Bengaluru just in time to beat the July 11 deadline for our teams to qualify. Relay qualification earlier used to be through IAAF-designated meets. Not that it made qualification foolproof.

Unless the IAAF stipulates conditions for getting national and international meets approved for the purpose of qualification for Olympics (or World championships) “world-class” performances would be churned out in Dushanbe, Tashkent, Almaty and Hyderabad but quite predictably such athletes would fail miserably in the championships.

Sometimes these performances may be No. 1 or 2 or 3 in the world that season. That should not mislead the fans. But they do get misled. That is where the credibility of the sport gets eroded.

If the credibility has to improve, qualification process has to be tightened. Let National federations invite IAAF-appointed technical delegates with impeccable credentials to oversee qualification meets. And of course there has to be mandatory dope-testing under the supervision of IAAF/WADA delegates.

Well, they might say this could turn out to be very expensive. Yes, spend the money to protect clean athletes; spend it to uphold the purity of sport, spend it to bolster the credibility of the sport.

How not to target a relay medal

There has been a feeling in Indian athletics that if India has to win an athletics medal in the Olympics it would come from the women’s 4x400m relay.  

From the 2010 Commonwealth Games at home when the team won a historic gold that feeling gained further credence. No one cared to remember that it happened to be the weakest field in memory in athletics in the Commonwealth.

Gradually, people at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and the Sports Ministry also started believing that a medal was possible in the relay in Olympics.

The hopes were dashed in 2011 when six of the top woman quarter-milers including three of the CWG gold medal-winning team were caught for doping. “Could they have been doping in 2010 also”, people asked. The doubts cropped up but no one really bothered, not least of all the authorities.

After protracted disciplinary proceedings that saw the case go through two panels in India and eventually the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), through an appeal by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the six women were suspended for two years.

Maken sacks Yuriy Ogorodnik

The man at the centre of the doping controversy in 2011 Yuriy Ogorodnik was sacked promptly by the then Sports Minister, Ajay Maken, one of the best sports ministers we have had in recent years.

Maken said he would not spare anyone who was responsible for the scandal.  “It is always the athletes who are punished and the others associated with them are let off scot-free. Athletes are banned and their medals are withdrawn but what of the coaches and the officials,” asked Maken.

Ogorodnik pleaded innocence before the Justice Mukul Mudgal enquiry panel which absolved the athletes saying that the coach had provided the contaminated supplement that led to the positive tests.

When the time came for preparing the relay teams for Rio Olympics, five of the six women involved in the doping episode were back. More significantly, coach Ogorodnik was also back despite much criticism from the media. He was back as the coach of the women and men’s relay quartets that were eyeing a qualification slot for Olympics.
AFI chief Adille Sumariwalla defended the Ukrainian saying the athletes had not blamed him and had admitted that they themselves had bought the supplement. The conclusions of the disciplinary and appeal panels, however, put the blame entirely on the coach. The athletes were given a lenient punishment (later overturned by CAS) only on the argument that they trusted the coach and did not know from where he got the supplement. They thought it was supplied by the AFI to the coach.

Who all were selected as probables

Let’s for a moment forget about the Ukrainian coach. Let’s look at who all were called as probables for Rio. The inclusion of Priyanka Panwar in the team for the World athletics championships at the last moment revealed the plans that the AFI had. Panwar had not competed in a 400m in 2015 when she was included in the team for Beijing. (Panwar is currently serving a provisional suspension for doping having tested positive a second time during the final attempt to make the cut for the relay team.)

Also included in the camp and in the batch to train in Antalya, Turkey, under Ogorodnik in October 2015 were Ashwini Akkunji and Chhavi Sahrawat, both having not competed in 2015. Sahrawat in fact had not competed in a 400m at the national level since 2013 when she had timed her PB of 53.85s.

Sahrawat was dropped from the final list of probables who went to Spala, Poland in May this year. But by mid-2016 the Sports Ministry had released at least Rs 48.69 lakh for her training expenses including Rs 13,53819 from the flagship project Target Olympic Podium (TOP).

Fourteen athletes were included among the probables for the women’s 4x400m relay team. Mandeep Kaur, one of the CWG and Asian Games gold medal winning team member who underwent suspension in 2011, opted out of the camp at some point, and was removed from the TOP scheme, but by then she had incurred an expenditure of Rs 21.82 lakh including Rs 564425 from TOP funding. She did not compete in any meet this year.

Yuriy's batch fails

The fact that no one from “Yuriy’s batch” made the top four in the women’s relay, which eventually managed qualification with a 3:27.88 in Bangalore on July 10, a day before the deadline, said a few things about SAI agreeing to AFI’s proposal for his recall. (The top four were: Nirmala Sheoran, Anilda Thomas, M. R. Poovamma and Tintu Luka. The fifth was 16-year-old Jisna Mathew).

The Ukrainian, it is learnt, wanted both Ashwini Akkunji and Priyanka Panwar in the squad for Rio but was over-ruled by the selection committee. Panwar was bracketed with Kerala’s Anu Raghavan initially when the AFI had planned to have a seven-member team with Tintu Luka also available as she was an 800m entry.

The AFI later realized that Nirmala Sheoran had to be named in the 4x400 as well after having qualified for the individual 400m. That meant just five other members could be chosen for the relay. Anilda Thomas, M. R. Poovamma, Debashree Majumdar, Jisna Mathew and Ashwini were named. Anu went to court against Ashwini’s inclusion since she had better credentials but couldn’t make it in the end.

Why did SAI agree to have so many probables for the women’s 4x400m relay team? It is not that a 4x400 team would be practicing baton exchange for six months or more! Or it is not that talent will suddenly burst out during a trip to Turkey or Poland, no matter that Ogorodnik must have been trying to work his “magic”.

Get selected even when you don’t compete!

Why were athletes picked when they had not even competed? Did SAI raise a question?

SAI surely needs a TEAMS Wing which can assess performances on its own, as it used to do in the past, and keep track of abnormal improvements so that it could advise NADA and get dope tests arranged. If the idea was to have a man like Ogorodnik back in command and allow him freedom to “produce numbers” by way of two relay teams (six members each) such a strategy was fine and would be okay in future too. But the results would be similar to that India achieved in Rio.

Even a man of Ogorodnik’s “touch” cannot get a bunch of women in the range of 53.5-54.5 to run 50.5-51.5. And the coach, according to insiders was planning to get a few of the women run below 51s this season. The best was someone outside the camp, Niramala Sheoran. And the moment she ran an awe-inspiring (by Indian standards) 51.48s in Hyderabad, the best by an Indian since June 2004, several people including this correspondent were convinced she would not be coming anywhere close to it in Olympics, forget about repeating it or bettering it.

Nirmala ran 53.03 to finish sixth in her heat in the individual 400m to bow out in the Rio Games. More importantly she had a split of 53.2 for the opening leg in the 4x400m relay. As for the others, Tintu Luka timed 52.2, Poovamma 52.24 and Anilda Thomas, on the anchor, 51.78.

The SAI or the Ministry should investigate why so many of the woman runners could not come anywhere near their personal bests even after months of training, supported by coaches, recovery expert, masseur etc, at enormous expenditure at home and abroad.

Ashwini who had a 52.82 PB for 400m (2011) had a season best of 53.98 in Bydogoszcz, Poland in June. She was not tried out in a competition closer to the July 11 deadline when others, who were better than her through the season, were asked to run, for example at the last GP meet in Bengaluru.

Jauna Murmu who had a PB of 52.78s (2010) clocked an SB 53.37s in Fed Cup in Delhi in April and despite the best of facilities and Ogorodnik’s attention in Spala, Poland, slumped to 54-plus in subsequent meets finally ending up eighth in Bengaluru in 56.01s, her worst in eight years. Mind you, she has a best of 56.88s for the 400m hurdles clocked while finishing fourth in the Asian Games in Guangzhou in 2010.

If the women at least managed to come 13th overall in Rio in a time of 3:29.53 (seventh in heat), the men fared disastrously. They were disqualified after coming seventh in their heat in 3:02.24.

The focus shifts to men’s team

Even before the men’s team clocked a sensational national record of 3:00.91 in Hyderabad the focus had shifted to it from the women’s relay team. There was talk of it getting India’s first athletics medal since Independence. No one was fooled by the national record in Hyderabad. Could it have been doping? "Faulty timer?" posed Digvijay Singh of the CNN News-18 on Twitter.

The hype with AFI presiden Sumariwalla forecasting a sub-three-minute timing for the men's quartet, was apparently kept up by coach Kunhi Mohammed just before the athletics events started in Rio if a report that appeared on the web is to be believed.

Speaking exclusively to Sportskeeda, Kunhi Mohammed said, “The boys ran 2:56.7 the other day, which is a good timing. If we want to be in the top 5, this is the kind of timing we need to register. It might be the fastest timing, but it will be a bit misleading because the best teams who clock 2:54 have not been running. That being said all the boys are running under 45.3 second splits, which is definitely top 5 worthy. Now they need to translate their training success in the main event.”

That mention about 2:54 was apparently to indicate that the best teams were yet to run this season, which was a fact. But 2:54?!

The US clocked 2:54.29 for the world record in winning the gold at the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart. No team has clocked a sub-2:55 in the world since!

The 2:56 that the Indian coach mentioned about his team had run in training? That was not just good enough for a fifth place, but good enough for a medal, possibly good enough for the gold! (The US clocked 2:57.30 in taking the gold in Rio. Jamaica was second in 2:58.16 and the Bahamas third in 2:58.49.)

Only the Bahamas, in winning the London Olympics gold (2:56.72), has a sub-2:57 outside of the US beyond the 1990s. Of the total 13 sub-2:57 marks in history, the US has nine, Britain two, and the Bahamas and Jamaica one each.

It is interesting to see who all had constituted that world-record-breaking US team in 1993: Quincy Watts (PB 44.28, 1993), Andrew Valmon (PB 43.50, 1992, SB 44.13), Butch Reynolds (PB 43.29, 1988, SB 44.13) and Michael Johnson (PB then, also SB 43.65).

 Valmon ran a 44.5 opening leg, Watts had 43.6 on second, Reynolds chipped in with 43.23 and Johnson, who was to set a world record 43.18 in 1999 (bettered by South African Wayde van Neikerk in Rio with 43.03s), anchored in 42.94s!

The Indian men’s splits in Rio were Kunhumohammed 45.9, Muhammed Anas 45.1, A. Dharun 46.55, Arokia Rajiv 44.66. Only Rajiv was world-class; the others have miles to go to reach a level that can promise an Olympic relay medal. Yet, the team, even within the 3:02 range should be able to dominate the Asian scene in the near future. If it can manage 3:00.91 or around it will be unbeatable. All these are conjectures of course at this point.

But what should our coaches be targeting for through fair means in forming a world-class relay team?  Certainly not two runners with sub-46 timings and the other two with sub-47. You need three in the sub-46 range and one in the sub-45 bracket. Not a sub-45 relay leg but a sub-45 one-lapper.

The Bahamas, third in Rio with 2:58.49 had Alonzo Russell (PB 45.25, 2016), Michael Mathieu (PB 45.00, 2015, SB 45.42), Steven Gardiner (PB 44.27, 2015, SB 44.46, nine sub-45 career marks) and 37-year-old former National record holder Chris Brown on the anchor (PB 44.40, 2008, SB 45.56).

It was a mistake

“We made a mistake in bringing back Yuriy,” said an experienced senior coach while we discussed the disaster (barring a few exceptions of course) that Rio turned out to be for Indian athletics.

Mercifully, the Government’s line of thinking, according to sources, was to do away with the services of Ogorodnik as well as a few other East European coaches. They had failed to deliver and it was 'time for them to go' was the feeling.

In line with the Government advisory about avoiding training in countries with a reputation in doping, or in hiring coaches from such countries (that came a little too late for anyone to implement before Rio), the SAI has informed the AFI that in future the latter could look for some other countries than the East European ones. But distance coach Nikolai Snesarev of Belrus seems to have survived the 'SAI cut', going by this report. Since at least 1998 the East Europeans had been dominating our coaches lists.

But the Ministry and SAI would be better off in giving up this theory that our athletes could be susceptible to accidental ingestion of banned substances while training in such dope-tainted countries. The large majority takes banned drugs in order to improve performance; to attain qualification marks, and, if they can avoid detection, to win medals in international competitions. 
The belief that only some junior athletes and some department-level athletes indulge in doping might have also received a setback following the positive tests returned by shot putter Inderjeet Singh and sprinter Darambir Singh, both Olympic qualified athletes. The reported positive test of Priyanka Panwar and a few other cases yet to be brought up should convince everyone, if convincing is required at all, that doping is a big problem in Indian athletics and the authorities have to tackle it on a war-footing.

We can’t pretend that our athletes are turning in world-class performances at home and in places like Erzurum (Turkey), Bydgoszcz, Spala and Almaty, but are unable to come close to those marks while competing in Olympics only because of some miscalculation by coaches about peaking. If we do that once again, as we have been doing in the past, India may have to eventually pay a heavy price. Russian athletes just paid it in Rio.
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(updated: 07-09-2016)