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