Asiad relay squad composition comes into focus (rankings part II)

On the women’s side, Hima Das improved dramatically through the season before settling with a national record of 50.79s for the 400m silver in the Asian Games. With a ranking score of 1215, she was way ahead of the rest of the Indians in the 400m to occupy the 19th slot. Nirmala Sheoran, now under provisional suspension on a doping charge, had 1174 points for the 40th rank while M. R. Poovamma (1121) was joint 92nd.

If one were to exclude the dope-tainted Nirmala, Poovama comes in second in the world rankings among the Indians. Who is third?

That position brings to light the unfair manner in which Jisna Mathew as kept out of the Asian Games relay squad after a hurriedly-convened trial at the games venue. Jisna, ranked 135th (1100) in the world is (was) way above V. K. Vismaya at joint 223rd (1072) and Saritaben Gayakwad at joint 290th (1057). Hima Das, Poovamma, Vismaya and Gayakwad formed the relay team that won the gold in Jakarta.

One can justifiably argue that Vismaya got into the team as the fourth runner in the 4x400 relay as she edged Jisna in the Jakarta trial. But what about Sarita? Why was she not fielded in the trial? Was she so way above or so senior and so established that she could be considered an automatic choice while Jisna, Vismaya, Soniya Baishya and  G. K. Vijayakumari were asked to slug it out on track to fill in the lone slot that was made available in the relay team?

For all the above girls, the timings taken into account for scoring have come prior to the Asian Games. Jisna had 53.32 (final, Asian championships 2017), 53.26 (Asian juniors 2018), 53.18 (heats, Asians 2017), 53.86 (heats, World under-20) and 54.20 (inter-state). Jisna scored 130 placing score for her third place in the Asian championships last year and 40 for her gold in the Asian Juniors this year. Category of a particular meet determines the placing score, the higher the category the more points you gain. Heats and semis do not score.

Vismaya had 53.30 (Gliwice), 53.55 (Wroclaw), 53.52 (Kladno), 53.74 (Jablonec) and 53.88 (Nove Mesto nad Metuji). Vismaya scored a total of 38 points for her placing in four of the meets. In one she scored nothing since that race happened to be a heat.

Gayakwad had 53.24 (Kladno), 53.67 (7th, inter-State), 53.72 (heats, inter-State), 54.31 (Kladno) and 53.87 (6th, Fed Cup). She scored a total of 10 placing points from the meet at Kladno.

It is obvious, Gayakwad’s 53.24 clinched her an automatic place in the relay team. Jisna, P. T. Usha's trainee, was 0.02s slower with her season best. But if that argument were to be given credence, then Vijayakumari had a far better time of 53.03s at the Fed Cup.

Need fair and unbiased selection

If relay teams are finalized on the basis of a season best alone such an imbalance as the one that came about in the Indian team composition in Jakarta is bound to arise. Coaches and the federation have to be fair and impartial in this team selection business at the spot.

Incidentally, Chhavi Sharwat is ranked 215th while Prachi Singh who went to court along with the former questioning their exclusion from the relay squad, and lost the case, is surprisingly not ranked.

In the women’s sprints, Dutee Chand, who bagged two silver medals in the Asian Games, is ranked 59 (100m) and 56 (200m). There is quite a prominent presence of Indian women in the middle and long- distance events, too, with P. U. Chithra (joint 37th in 1500m), L. Suriya (54th in 5000m and 31st in 10,000m) and Sanjivani Jadhav, now under provisional suspension for doping (55th in 5000m, 80th in 10,000m) being the leaders among Indians.

Other creditable Indian rankings:

Men: 3000m steeplechase: Avinash Sable (80); 110m hurdles: Siddhanth Thingalaya (74); High jump: B. Chethan (55); Discus: Dharamraj Yadav (90). 20km walk: K. T. Irfan (41); 50km walk: Sandeep Kumar (38).

Women: 400m hurdles: Anu Raghavan (45), Jauna Murmu (69); 3000m steeplechase: Chinta Yadav (98); Long jump N. V. Neena (29), Nayana James (61); Triple jump: N. V. Sheena (68); Discus: Seema Punia (26), Navjeet Kaur Dhillon (51); Hammer: Sarita Romit Singh (88); Javelin: Annu Rani (40); Heptathlon: Purnima Hembram (48); 20km walk: Khushbir Kaur (35), Ravina (44), Shanti Kumari (64). (National record setter in 2018, Baby Soumya is not ranked in 20km walk probably because at the time of drawing up these lists she did not have the minimum number of competitions).

Come New Year, there will be some minor movements in the rankings. As the year progresses, performances will drop off, some of them will get lesser points depending on how far away they were from the ranking date and some others will bring in new personal bests and better placings in major competitions. 

The Indian season is scheduled to begin in February. But the real test for the Indian athletes will come in the Asian championships in Doha in April when many of them will be under pressure to retain their places and performances achieved in the last Asian meet in Bhubaneswar in order to maintain their rankings.

After having decided to base World Championships qualification this year on rankings, the IAAF has had a change of heart. The old pattern will continue, that is based on of qualification standards, world lists, rankings lists, Area champions qualification etc. However, for the Tokyo Olympics, the world rankings will come into play. A top-60-80 ranking,, depending on the event, will be of help to an athlete in his/her qualification bid. The IAAF is yet to announce the details of the rankings-based qualification system for the Olympics 

Right now, the mood in Indian athletics should be one of celebration notwithstanding the doping cases this year, culminating in five of the international-level athletes being caught in re-tests in Montreal ordered by WADA of samples that had turned up negative in the New Delhi lab. That only showed many of our athletes were escaping detection probably because of lack of more sophisticated equipment at NDTL. The moment such equipment is installed in the lab and our scientists acquire the expertise to use them, the athletes could be in for more shocks!

(Concluded)
Part I here

Six Indian athletes in World top-20

M. Anas is ranked an impressive 19th in the world in the 400m
_Pic courtesy G. Rajaraman

Indian athletics is on the upswing again!

The world rankings, which will come into effect from January 2019, and which are in the testing stage at the moment, show six Indian athletes in the top-20 bracket for 2018.

Javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra is the highest ranked in the rankings up to December 25, 2018, at No.4 in the world, a remarkable achievement for the 21-year-old Indian who broke through only in 2016 with a world junior record (86.48m) and the world under-20 title. Since then, he has not looked back with a series of outstanding performances culminating in the Asian Games gold last August with a personal best and national record of 88.06m.

 Chopra has 1347 points and is behind two Germans, ranked joint No.1, Andreas Hoffmann and Olympic champion Thomas Rohler, both at 1417, and Estonian Magnus Kirt (1374). World champion Johannes Vetter of Germany is at fifth, just seven points behind Chopra. Vetter topped the 2018 season with 92.70m. Hoffmann has thrown over 90 metres four times this season with a best of 92.06m.

Rankings are based on a complicated set of criteria that take into account performance, placing, category of competition etc. The highest category has Olympics and World championships while Area championships (Asian championships for example) are rated higher than Area Games (Asian Games for example).

Diamond League finals will come in the second category followed by a set of IAAF World events plus Diamond League meetings. The average score of five meetings in a 12-month span would be taken into calculations. Points accruing from meets in the previous season would drop off as the new season progresses. (10,000m, road events, racewalking and combined events would be scored over an 18-month period).

Area championship given prominence

Performance in the latest Area championships would be counted irrespective of whether they fall into the ranking period or not. The minimum number of performances in 5000m, 3000m steeplechase and road running events other than marathon is three while in 10,000m, marathon and combined events it is two. In racewalking it is three for 20km and two for 50km.

Apart from Chopra, the other Indians in the top-20 rankings for the year are: Muhammed Anas, 400m (19), Arpinder Singh, triple jump (13); Hima Das, 400m (19), Sudha Singh, 3000m steeplechase (20) and Swapna Barman, heptathlon (15).

This is indicative of the progress made by the Indian athletes over the past year. Not in terms of a solitary, record-breaking performance as it often happened in the past but through consistent performances through the season. Of course, someone like Barman is ranked exceptionally high at 15 thanks to the policy of the IAAF to retain the Asian championships score (5942) of 2017, which is more than a year old, to add to her Asian Games tally of a personal best 6026.

It may be recalled, in 2016, triple jumper Renjith Maheswary was fourth in the world lists (as different from rankings since a single performance in a year could gain an athlete such a distinction) with his 17.30m performance at Bengaluru in the run-up to the Olympic Games. It is a different matter, he could manage only 16.13m in the qualification round in Rio, finishing overall 30th.

The highest ranked Indian in the old IAAF world rankings was long jumper Anu George at fourth, in phases in 2004 and 2005.

In the Olympic year, Neeraj Chopra, with his world junior mark of 86.48m, was 11th among the seniors in the world lists, long jumper Ankit Sharma (8.19m) was 20th and woman steeplechaser Lalita Babar (9:19.76) 13th. They were lists, not rankings which are based on a set of performances rather than a lone mark.

From being around the 75-76-metre bracket in 2010 and 2011, Indian javelin throwers have joined the 80-metre club with Chopra threatening to breach the 90-metre mark. His success has seen a bunch of young javelin throwers striving to reach world standards. So much so, today India has four javelin throwers, other than Chopra, in the top-100 of the world.

Vipin Kasana (47), Rajender Singh Dalvir (59), Sahil Silwal (87) and Shivpal Singh (94) are the other Indian javelin throwers in the 2018 rankings who have got into the top-100. Davinder Singh Kang, the lone Indian to make the World championships final in 2017 also would have been in this list had he been competing but he is under a provisional suspension for doping.

Shivpal Singh (82.28m), Dalvir (90.63m) and Kasana (80.04m), apart from Chopra, have thrown beyond 80 metres this season. It may be mentioned here that Shivpal could manage only a 74.11m for eighth place in the Asian Games.

The throwers in both sections will need to substantially improve their performance in major international meets if Indian athletics has to live up to its new-found stature of having a number of top world-ranked athletes.

The Indian athletes have done exceedingly well on track also this year as can be seen from several of them figuring in the top-100 rankings.

Anas ranked 19th

Right on top of that list comes Muhammed Anas. The 19th rank is an enviable position for the Kerala man who has been bettering the 400m national record regularly since 2016.  He clocked a national record of 45.24s in an all-India race in a meet in the Czech Republic in July last.

Arokia Rajiv, former national record holder, gives Anas company in the top-100, being ranked 54.P. P. Kunhumohammed (183) and Amoj Jacob (187), injured during the relay in the Commonwealth Games, are two other Indian quarter-milers in the top-200.

Jinson Johnson, who bettered Sriram Singh 1976 national record in the 800m (1:45.77) with an awesome 1:45.65 at the Gwahati Inter-State meet, is ranked joint 43rd in the 800m though he could manage only the silver behind team-mate Manjit Singh in the event in the Asian Games. Manjit is at joint 83rd. In the 1500m in which Johnson won the gold in the Asian Games, he is ranked 46. Johnson had bettered Bahadur Prasad’s 1995 mark (3:38.00) in the metric mile with a 3:37.86 for fifth place in the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

Ayyasamy Dharun’s progress in the 400m hurdles has been nothing short of spectacular this season. Even when he was far from fit, he had clocked 49.45s for a national record in the Fed Cup at Patiala in March, bettering Joseph Abraham’s 2007 record of 49.51s clocked in the Osaka World championships. He followed that up with another NR of 48.96s for second place in the Asian Games final behind Aberrahmane Samba of Qatar. Dharun is ranked 33.

Depth in hurdles

Interestingly, India has two more athletes in the men’s 400m hurdles rankings who are within the top-100, M. P. Jabir (59) and T. Santhosh Kumar (61). Such talent and depth in an event in which India’s best last year was the 128th place for Santhosh (50.16s) in world lists. Jabir was at 138th place (50.22s) and Dharun (50.81s) at 237th. This year, Santhosh has clocked 49.66 (5th Asian Games) and Jabir 50.02 (Open National). India has two more athletes in the sub-51 bracket this season, Vijay Singh Malik and Jashanjot Singh.

Prominent Indians to be ranked in the field events, apart from Arpinder Singh, included shot putter Tejinder Pal Singh Toor who is 23rd. Toor had a national record of 20.75m for his gold in the Asian Games that fetched him a whopping 1362 performance score. He average a ranking score of 1197 over five meets. He had one other effort of more than 20 metres, 20.24 in the Fed Cup. His slump to 19.37m in the Inter-State at Guwahati was a surprise but he compensated with the national record and gold in Jakarta.

Two of the most promising youngsters to get into the top-50 in the world are high jumper Tejaswain Shankar (35) and long jumper M. Sreeshankar (40) who posted a national record of 8.20m in winding up the season at the Open.

Arpinder Singh scored heavily from the Jakarta Asian Games (16.77m, 1st, 1280 points) and Ostrava Continental Cup (16.59m, 3rd, 1271). He had 16.62m in the Open in Ranchi, 16.46m in CWG and 16.33m in last year’s Asian championships for a highly satisfying 13th rank in the world. Rakesh Babu was 63rd.

(-Contd. Part II)

How did hockey become top priority for NADA after it rated it at No. 12?

Representative pic_Courtesy G. Rajaraman

One of the most curious aspects of anti-doping measures being carried out this year, was the top position hockey had acquired among leading “dopey sports”. Many of us questioned the wisdom of the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) in spending its precious resources on a game that had produced just six doping cases through nine years of NADA’s existence, two of them for recreational drugs, while a sport like athletics had churned out 210 and weightlifting 197 (as per available data on the NADA website.)

But NADA had its explanations for why hockey was pushed up the ladder for more tests and, though unconvincing, we had to believe it. It will also have answers ready for overall numbers at the end of the year since it has started adding sample numbers at a furious pace though seemingly there are not many major events around. From a total of 2062 tests by July-end, it has moved to 3188 by Oct-end. Hockey will soon be dumped and athletics brought back into the top of the lists.

In his revealing report in the Indian Express dated 4 November 2018, titled “How NADA rested as athletes trained”, Mihir Vasavda quoted NADA Director-General, Navin Agarwal, as saying hockey was a “very high-risk sport”. The report went onto quote him: “Apart from the psychological impact of doping, points like probability of winning medals and popularity of game in the country are also considered. Hockey ranks very high in both, so the number of tests that were to be conducted as pretty high.”

Hockey in front

Tests up to July-end, 2018 showed hockey had provided 92 samples while athletics had two less. Even if, let us say, hockey was 92 and athletics 100, it still wouldn’t have made sense. At least to those of us who follow sports and, more importantly, follow doping and anti-doping. There were sports like weightlifting (63 samples), boxing (69) and wrestling (70) which should have been high on the “high-risk” chart but were well behind hockey at that point of time.

It was not just a matter of hockey beating athletics by two tests up to July, but several other ‘vulnerable sports’ being downgraded, from an anti-doping perspective, while keeping up this illogical chant about hockey being “high risk” that rankled.

Not unexpectedly, NADA did not keep quiet on the Indian Express report. It put out a “facts and figures” chart on its website in an apparent attempt to rebut the report point by point. It proved a futile attempt to wriggle out of the hole it had dug for itself. (These points were also discussed in a two-part blog piece here).

On hockey, this is what NADA said on its website: “Scientific assessment of various risk parameters such as strength, endurance, popularity etc, form the basis of determining the numbers to be tested. Hockey is now getting more funding in India and has become high in popularity with probability of medal winning; all these have moved it up in our risk assessment and thereby increase in the numbers to be tested.”

Now the goalposts were widened. From “probability of winning medals and popularity of the game”, the point about “funding” was added.

Since many of the arguments that the NADA DG put forward in the newspaper report centred around the regulations, guidelines and prescribed parameters of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), a set of questions were posed through e-mail to the Montreal-based agency in an effort to get a better idea about “risk assessment”.

Of course, “risk assessment” as WADA has explained in its reply to me, and as most of us knew previously, and had tweeted about, is based on Article 4.2.1 of the International Standards for Testing and Investigations.

What is 'risk assessment'

WADA quoted the rules below to re-emphasize what “risk assessment” was in a recent communication:

“As set out in Code Article 5.4, the starting point of the Test Distribution Plan must be a considered assessment, in good faith, of which Prohibited Substances and/or Prohibited Methods are most likely to be abused in the sport(s) and sport discipline(s) in question.

This assessment should take into account (at a minimum) the following information:

a) The physical and other demands of the relevant sport(s) (and/or discipline(s) within the sport(s)), considering in particular the physiological requirements of the sport(s)/sport discipline(s);

b) The possible performance-enhancing effects that doping may elicit in such sport(s)/sport discipline(s);

c) The rewards available at the different levels of the sport(s)/sport discipline(s) and/or other potential incentives for doping;

d) The history of doping in the sport(s)/sport discipline(s);

e) Available research on doping trends (e.g., peer-reviewed articles);

f) Information received/intelligence developed on possible doping practices in the sport (e.g., Athlete testimony; information from criminal investigations; and/or other intelligence developed in accordance with WADA's Guidelines for Cordinating Investigations and Sharing Anti-Doping Information and Evidence in accordance with Section 11.0 of the International Standard for Testing and Investigations; and

g) The outcomes of previous test distribution planning cycles.”

NADA also probably knew these rules. But one had to pose a few specific questions to get more clarity. So, one asked and got the answers (WADA’s answers in Italics and blue):

Q: Did WADA suggest any particular grading for sports disciplines to be categorized as per “risk assessment” after it did the last audit of Indian NADO?

 The NADO was asked to focus on high risk sports and athletes participating in upcoming major events, for example the Commonwealth Games, Asian Games and World Championships.

Q: What was the order of priority suggested by WADA, if any, for sports to be considered in grading “risk assessment” as far as Indian anti-doping efforts were concerned? If no particular grading was suggested, then what was the grading provided by the Indian NADO after the WADA audit? Where did hockey figure in that grading?

 Hockey is ranked 12^th in the list of sports in India in terms of doping risk as contained in NADA’s Risk Assessment.

So, hockey was ranked 12th only in that “risk assessment” exercise. By NADA and no one else. Yet, NADA DG and his agency repeatedly tried to give the impression that hockey indeed was “high risk” and they had to consider so many factors while drawing up their priorities, all as per WADA guidelines.

NADA might have gone after hockey to boost numbers easily since the players are bunched together at one camp. But it obviously did not want to concede that point or the one about athletics and weightlifting numbers being down instead of going considerably up with Asian Games round the corner.

Q: Where did the following sports disciplines figure in that grading: Athletics, weightlifting, wrestling, boxing, cycling, swimming, powerlifting, bodybuilding?

All were identified in the top 10 sports based on the risk factors applied out of 63 sport disciplines assessed.

  

Another topic that keeps coming up these days is the number of samples being tested by NADA every year. So, it was prudent to ask the following question:

Q: Has WADA given a target of sample numbers to the Indian NADO for the year 2018? If so, how many?

WADA does not provide a target number for NADOs to meet. 

The Test Distribution Plan (TDP) should reflect the risk assessment and the level of testing among the sports and athletes identified to be “at a higher risk” than others. 

The ISTI requires that the majority of tests are conducted out of competition (OOC). Note that the TDP is a living document and not a static one, it is intended to be an ongoing process that changes based on variations within the athletes competing in the sports identified.

The TDP should be amended based on risk factors, test results, information/intelligence received, athlete performance, Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) profiles etc.

Missing RTP athletes altogether at crucial period

NADA missed testing out-of-competition plenty of athletes in its Registered Testing Pool in the run-up to the Asian Games. NADA, however, keeps denying that many were missed. It has even suggested that during the rest of the year it would complete the minimum three tests on such athletes. Like its drive towards a target of 3500 tests a year this is another farce it goes through, test RTP athletes a few times after the major championships of the season are over.

 In this context, a question was put to WADA:

 Is it all right to miss testing athletes listed in the Registered Testing Pool in out-of-competition testing altogether for a year?

Following the risk assessment outlined above, such high profile/risk athletes identified should be part of an RTP which requires the NADO to plan to test the Athletes a minimum of three times OOC per year.

The one point which WADA seemed to agree with NADA was the need to limit in-competition samples even from major championships.

Q: When WADA expects more out-of-competition tests than in-competition in a sport like athletics there is a possibility of the NADO cutting down in-competition numbers, say from 1000 to 400 in order to meet the OOC requirements which may lead to a complete mockery of testing in-competition. This is what we have started witnessing in India, either skip an athletics meet altogether or else collect just 20 or 30 samples. Would WADA suggest a remedy?

As outlined above, testing at the same event becomes predictable. Therefore, reducing test numbers at a particular event and using the resources to test an event not normally tested is a good way to spread the effectiveness of a program and to instill some levels of unpredictability to athletes.

One cannot agree with either the NADA policy or the WADA argument here. NADA has been spreading out its testing to all sorts of events in all types of sports, and when it comes to an Asian Games selection meet like this year’s Inter-State at Guwahati, if the numbers are down to 40 or 60, athletes and coaches do ask the question: But who are being tested? When adequate out-of-competition tests are also not done, and NADA keeps sending teams to test at state-level meets and college meets, this question gains a different connotation.

NADA and WADA need to understand that in the Indian context, an Olympic qualification in a majority of cases is the ultimate aim for a track and field athlete and the so-called selection trials have to be strictly put through the anti-doping grind. This should not mean that the out-of-competition testing programme could be diluted. That should remain the main plank on which NADA directs its anti-doping efforts.

With the latest developments related to WADA re-testing some of the samples it took custody of last September and five track and field athletes and a weightlifter being caught in the dope net, there is all the more reason for NADA to be more vigilant in the coming season when athletics will have the Asian championships and the World Championships in Doha.

NADA has to shed its philosophy “we don’t want to bother athletes again and again” and eventually not test them at all out-of-competition through a crucial period of their preparations. NADA needs experts to determine its RTP and Test Distribution Plan and a sincere effort to take on its primary task_keep dope cheats away.