Off to Spala again (Part II)

There is speculation about Nirmala Sheoran's comeback

How did the women fare in 2016? Nirmala Sheoran (left), the No. 1 woman and the only qualifier for individual 400m for Rio, sprung herself only at the inter-State, the final selection meet, and clocked 51.48s. It is not her style to be part of batches catching flights to foreign locations. She trained alone and, not unexpectedly, turned in a 53.03s in the Olympics to go out in the preliminary round.

The AFI has indicated that Nirmala could be competing again in the inter-State this month in a bid to make it to the Asian Games squad. Should such an athlete who apparently was unavailable for dope-testing by NADA the past few months despite being in its registered testing pool, be allowed to compete without being tested a few times? This is a question AFI and NADA have to answer after consultations. Since NADA does not disclose whether an athlete was tested or not during the preceding months, there is no certainty about Nirmala having been tested. At least one colleague suggested that she was tested last at the Asian championships in Bhubaneswar in July, 2017. She was recently dropped from its RTP by NADA.

Jisna trains at home, comes second

Jisna Mathew, P. T. Usha’s protégé, the recent Asian junior champion for a second time, was another athlete who preferred to train at home in the Olympic year. In fact, Usha doesn’t allow her athletes to go abroad for training, preferring to do it at her school near Koyilandy, in  Kozhikode District. Jisna improved her season best of 53.74s in New Delhi Fed Cup to a PB of 53.14s for the second place in the inter-State in Hyderabad. Was it a reminder to Ogorodnik and the authorities that his well laid-out plans of a long training programme in Poland had flopped? Though Ogorodnik's trainees did not compete in Hyderabad, Jisna had bettered their timings, barring that of M. R. Poovamma, with her PB. Anilda Thomas, though she was part of the Spala batch, was not considered to be from the Ogorodnik stable.

The other two, who formed the relay team were  Poovamma and Anilda. Poovamma had timings of 52.60s and 52.57s at home before she improved it to 52.31 in Bydgoszcz. She slipped slightly to 52.85s in Bengaluru in July.

Anilda clocked her PB of 52.40s in the Fed Cup in New Delhi. She couldn’t improve on that through an arduous season though there were a couple of sub-53s after that.

Two women trained at home, one clocked her best at home before going to Poland, and one improved marginally through the season. Among the others, Ashwini A.C., who was suspended for a doping offence in 2011, made it among the reserves. She was the lone survivor from “Yuriy’s batch”, identified so by athletes and coaches to recall the 2011 doping incident involving six women. Debashree Majumdar completed the six-member relay team as the last reserve. The others from  the Spala batch who could not make it into the relay team were : Jauna Murmu, Priyanka Panwar and Sini Jose.

A court case

Anu Raghavan, who was also at Spala, but whose PB of 53.54s came at home, fought a court case to displace Ashwini and get herself selected but failed only because time left for the proceedings to go on was too short. That was the story of our 400m runners in 2016. The relay team could not make it to the Olympic final, clocking 3:29.53 compared to the 3:27.88 in Bengaluru. The team’s Olympic qualification was almost certain through the season.

Is it the weather in Europe that then is supposed to provide the setting for Indian athletes to train prior to a major international championship? Or is it the food? These questions normally come up but there never had been a clear answer to these.

The weather of course has to be far better than the summer temperatures of India, especially in the northern parts of the country. But then Jakarta in August is not going to be cool for that matter.

The food in Spala was not the best that the athletes enjoyed, according to this report. The Indian athletes, as per this report, were apparently in favour of a little spicy food which they could not get in Poland last time. (However, the authorities seemed to have stuck to Spala this time, too despite apprehensions on the gastronomic front).

In any case, with nearly Rs 700 per day per head being given by Government as board expenses for athletes in national camps (apart from Rs 400-plus for supplements per head), there is no reason why India cannot provide nutritious, palatable, wholesome food to its athletes at camps. Recent complaint by the chief men’s hockey coach about quality of food and hygiene in SAI, Bengaluru, might give one the feeling it would be better to train in places like Spala or Yalta, but that situation has to be rectified; sooner the better.

The needle controversy

The international anti-doping agencies must have taken note of the expulsion of two Indian athletes in Gold Coast for breaching the “no needles” policy during the Commonwealth Games. The Indian athletes will need to exercise extreme care since the focus would be on them given the country’s record in doping since 2013.

In 2016, three top athletes, shot putter Inderjeet Singh, sprinter Dharmabir Singh and quarter-miler Priyanka Panwar were caught doping. Dharambir is serving an eight-year suspension since that happened to be his second. Priyanka too had been slapped with an eight-year suspension since she was also in the famous 2011 batch that received two-year sanctions. She has, however, appealed her suspension and the hearing is ongoing.

Another athlete, hurdler Jithin Paul, who was part of the Spala batch in 2016,  now slapped with a four-year ban for possession of meldonium, has also appealed the decision against him. Recovery of needles from personal kits and banned drugs from rooms of athletes can only point towards doping practices. Committees and hearing panels may eventually reprieve them but there cannot be a “clean” image after that.

Whatever be the reasons that force the AFI to send athletes abroad for training, along with coaches hired from foreign countries and based in India, for years in certain cases, the ultimate clincher would be medals. Government wants medals and nothing else. No medal could have been expected from Rio. But more than one place in the final would not have been too high an expectation either.

Last time in the Incheon Asian Games, the Indian athletes bagged only two gold medals, Seema Antil in discus and the women’s longer relay team. The count should drastically go up this time for Indian athletics to justify the high priority and the generous, if not lavish, funding that the Government has provided it. By the way, the constant harping on “world-class facilities” in reference to training locations abroad only exposes the archaic infrastructure we have in our country despite al the talk of 50 Olympic medals by 2024.

(Concluded)
Part I is here
Updated: 16 June, 2018: A reference to the  Jakarta Asian Games also having a 'no-needle' policy at the games village, venues etc, like the CWG had in Gold Coast, in its anti-doping regulations, has been removed since it would seem, at least for the moment, that there is no such policy in place.
Updated 29 June, 2018: Since the last update, the Indian Olympic Association has clarified that "no needle" policy would be there after all during Asian Games. The OCA Medical Commission had already informed NOCs of the regulations.