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| SPORT TRIBUNE Saturday, January 22, 2000 |
Is India prepared to host games? By Ramu Sharma IN a little less than two years India will be hosting the Afro Asian Games in Delhi. Hosting a competition of this size is in keeping with the country’s tradition of bidding for extravagant sporting events, starting with the first Asian Games in New Delhi in 1951. But that was as much a political event as it was one for sports. A newly independent country was trying to establish itself in the eyes of a continent where there were other countries making an effort to find their identities. Bid to end waste of talent Athletic
track nobody’s baby |
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Is India prepared to host games? IN a little less than two years India will be hosting the Afro Asian Games in Delhi. Hosting a competition of this size is in keeping with the country’s tradition of bidding for extravagant sporting events, starting with the first Asian Games in New Delhi in 1951. But that was as much a political event as it was one for sports. A newly independent country was trying to establish itself in the eyes of a continent where there were other countries making an effort to find their identities. Apart from the political angle, the Asian Games was a trend setter and more importantly Indians sportsmen and sportswomen achieved a fair degree of success, something rare these days. But then the other countries, with the exception of Japan, were still to settle down and the level of competition was not very high. For that matter even the organisation was quite simplistic, not something of the magnitude required these days. Perhaps buoyed up by the success of the Asian Games the country has since struck a very ambition strain. A number of World Championships have been held in the country with table tennis taking the lead with three such competitions. But by far the biggest show after the Asian Games of 1951 was the ninth edition of the multi-discipline show held again in Delhi, this time in 1982. This was again an outstanding success and much of the colour and pageantry associated with the Games was lauded all over, even by the normally restrained Chinese who paid a compliment by following some of the details, particularly the one relating to the medal distribution celebration, in the Games held in Beijing in 1990. India thus has proved beyond doubt that it can hold major international events of the dimensions of the Asian Games. But the question here is what has been the contribution of our sportsmen and sportswomen in terms of the numbers represented in these Games. A successful conduct of an international meet should also be matched by measured performance in keeping with the number of participants in these meets. Over the years organisers in India appear to be over-eager to offer to host major international meets but rarely is much thought given to the general standard of the discipline in the country. In the early years immediately after Independence the exercise was a different thing and the hosting of the World Table Tennis in Bombay and the Asian Games in Delhi did help project the country as one with great potential. Things have changed now. It is one thing to successfully conduct a major international but it is quite another to train our sportspersons to give matching performance with the competitors from the other participating countries. The Indian Olympic Association or for that matter the many organisations controlling the various disciplines must give some thought to the level of our performance before rushing to offer to host international meets. One remembers the World Wrestling Championships in India held in Delhi in the 60s. How many medals did the country get. The highest was a silver. The three World Championships organised by the Table Tennis Federation of India was a disaster as far as Indian performance was concerned. Even China which a string of world champions and material for many more had not staged the World Championships so many times when India organised it for the third time in the 80s. This is not criticise the organisers for bringing the World Championships to the country but for failing to ensure that Indian standards also improved. That has not happened. There has to be a change in the thinking of our sports organisers. Hosting major championships has not really improved our general standard in sports. As hosts the country must be able to boast of a minimum number of medals. And going by the pace of progress on the sports field, that is not going be achieved for a number of years. If the country is hosting the Afro Asian Games next year the Indian Olympic Association must ensure that our representatives in athletics in particular must have the capacity to give off a reasonable performance. India should not be a playing field for others to enjoy. The overall standard in the Afro Asian Games will be much higher than in the Asian Games in most disciplines and India merely figures on the Asian map. It is of course too much to expect India to do well in the Afro Asian Games but at the same time our participants must be trained to ensure that they do emerge with some honours. Essentially the projected Afro Asian Games, a pet theme for some time now, will have many political overtures and India will certainly stand to gain overall. But whether our sportsmen will benefit from this exercise is doubtful. So far, despite the usually chanted mantra about our sportsmen benefiting from exposure, nothing really has changed. We have had so many international competitions in the country but there has been no sign of improvement. Our footballers in fact have lost out, the standard of the game declining despite the Nehru Gold Cup and other big shows with foreign participation. In fact so poor has been the Indian showing in these internationals that one is often reduced to being satisfied with a goal scored by our team in any of the matches. That itself is deemed as an achievement. That should not happen
in the Afro Asian Games. While making all efforts on the
organisation side the Indian Olympic Association must
make extra effort to ensure that Indian participation is
not reduced to just numbers. The IOA is currently busy
preparing for the Olympics but for India the Afro Asian
Games is more important since it will be taking part in
all the disciplines, perhaps even more important than the
Asian Games of 2002. |
Bid to end waste of talent LYDIA CHEROMEI was the pride of Kenya in 1991 when the 13-year-old won the World Junior Cross-Country Championship in Antwerp, Belgium. Lydia, a school drop-out, underwent rigorous training in the Kenyan highlands, and later took the world 5,000 metres and African 10,000 metres junior titles. But only three years after her initial triumph she was so burnt out that she could not be included in the national team for the World Cross-Country Championships in Budapest. “She was too young to know whether the people she was dealing with were genuine,” leading Kenyan sports journalist Omulo Okoth says of some of the athletics agents who dealt with Lydia. “By 1994, she was wasted and only returned to the track in 1997 to try and win a few dollars to eke out a living.” Now 21 and married, the athlete says she wants to win her way back to stardom, but so far has had little success. The fall of Lydia Cheromei is cited by many in the sport who blame mishandling by unscrupulous agents and lack of education for ruining a growing number of young careers in Kenya — a nation famed for the quality of its middle and long-distance runners. The Kenya Amateur Athletics Association (KAAA) has set up an investigative committee to study burn-out and an apparent decline in the performance of young — particularly female — runners. “The performance of female athletes over the past six years has been pathetic, with the girls disappearing from the scene barely a year after emerging,” says Isaiah Kiplagat, the KAAA chairman. Moses Kiptanui, one of the country’s most successful middle-distance runners who now oversees the Puma training camp in Nyahururu, 160 km north-west of Nairobi, points to one reason: “Putting athletes as young as 12 on a hard running regime is to inhibit their physiological development.” Some agents, both local and foreign, are said to make payments to parents and schools to gain permission to take promising young athletes off to training camps. The handlers expect to profit later from the runners’ earnings. Despite an International Amateur Athletics Association ban on binding contracts for under-18s, enticements are offered for youngsters to sign non-binding agreements that they barely understand. Many leading athletes come from the impoverished highlands along the Rift Valley. Agents sometimes offer quality sports kits or promise to pay school fees. But if parents agree to a deal, their children’s education is often neglected or abandoned altogether. Some of the youngsters have been taken to invitation meetings in Europe and even ‘sold’ on to agents and managers there. The KAAA has vowed to fight such practices. A new code of conduct for agents will be adopted. All agents handling Kenyan athletes will be obliged to sign up. “From now on, we will protect students and young athletes from exploitation,” says Kiplagat. “After assessment, we have found that many of the agents do not mean well. We have also realised that the mushrooming of training camps in the rural areas has not been conducive, especially for young athletes.” Leading sports officials would like the government to take action. “School heads who allow students to abandon school for competitive races should be punished,” says Robert Ouko, a member of the team, which won the 4x400-metre relay gold medal in the 1972 Munich Olympics. His words are echoed by Colm O’Connell, an Irish lay priest and coach who trains at a camp near Eldoret. He calls for a crackdown on heads “who collude with agents and give permission to under-age pupils to go to Europe to run for money.” He adds: “In future, only school-going athletes should represent Kenya in international competitions.” Another worrying development is the incidence of males preying on young female athletes in the training camps. “Girls as young as 15 years old have been forced into sex by their handlers,” says the KAAA chief Kiplagat. Mary Chege, who chairs the KAAA women’s sub-committee, comments: “There should be chaperones and women coaches in the training camps to protect girls against unwanted sexual advances.” Paul Ereng, the Kenyan 800 metres gold medallist at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, says some coaches have been having sexual relations with female athletes. He notes that during the early nineties most leading athletes had a good level of education, but this is not the case today. Eliud Chisika, editor of the magazine The Athlete, says: “There are many athletes who have dropped out of primary school with no formal education. And they are expected to sign technical contracts. How can they do it, if they cannot read in the first place?’ Ibrahim Hussein, KAAA Assistant Secretary, stresses the need for good education to help Kenyan athletes invest and manage their earnings. “Some end up dying poor,” he adds. Sports commentators
point to the case of Henry Rono, who stomed out of the
blue in 1978 to break four world records and become the
highest-paid track athlete of his day. He is now said to
be working as an airport security officer in the United
States. — GEMINI NEWS |
Athletic track nobody’s baby THE Jalandhar Sports College as well as the Rs 1.5 crore Tartan track in it is virtually nobody’s baby these days. The college has become a victim of official apathy, ill-planning and absence of proper maintenance. If on the one hand the once prestigious Sports College, which has produced a number of world class players and scores of Arjuna awardees, has been converted into a picture of neglect these days thanks to the sheer indifference of the Sports Department, Punjab, towards it, it is the synthetic athletic track laid in 1995 and said to be one of the best in the country, which provides ample evidence how available resources could be wasted in more than one way. The very entrance to the Sports College building shows how sports has taken a back seat on the agenda of the State Government these days as one finds an entire building in a crumbling state. So much so that a part of the roof of a verandah outside the Principal’s office which caved in last year, has not been repaired so far even if the remaining reclining part of the roof has become a threat to the life of students of the college. But the most pitiable condition is that of the athletic track which was set up in the college with the objective of producing world-class athletes for the country. The track, which has been lying incomplete and which still awaits the nod of the Expert Committee of the NIS, is virtually of no use to those who are really in need of it for want of proper facilities and maintenance. So much so that there is no proper system of disposal of rain water, which remains accumulated on the track for hours even after a light downpour. Moreover, there no proper upkeep of the place, as a result of which it has become a favourite resting place for dogs and for strollers who use it for their morning and evening walks in the absence of proper fencing and security arrangements. “We have been crying hoarse that there should be proper maintenance of the place, but nobody listens to us and the higher authorities say that there is no money with them to spend on its maintenance” said an aggrieved coach. He said the 400-metre track by and large has remained unutilised as so far only district-level competitions have been organised at the place or it has been used as a mere practice ground by the college students or the players of Punjab Police and other paramilitary forces. “You can assess the indifference of the department towards the place from the fact that there is no place where the costly mattresses used in the jumping pits can be stored. These are lying in the open facing the vagaries of nature like rain and storms. To protect these we had to make covers for these on our own from bags used for fertilisers last year, but that too proved to be a short-term measure,” said another sports teacher, who wishes not to be quoted and said in all probability the damaged mattresses would not be replaced by the department. When this writer visited the site, he found that rain water had accumulated on the synthetic track and a group of players was busy overturning the mattresses so as to get the rain water out of these. “It is a common practice for us to get these dry as there is no place where we can store these,” said Gagandeep, a player. He said due to accumulation of water on the track, athletes could not use the track for days together. And as if this was not enough, there is no seating arrangement for visitors . And for pole vault athletes there are only three or four fibreglass poles, against a minimum requirement of 10 to15 such poles, revealed a teacher. According to sources, as many as 300 specially designed spikes were provided along with other track equipment, but these have been rotting in the stores since 1995 and have not been issued to the athletes so far. “I suspect these might have got damaged by now,” said an athletic coach, who said the department authorities had been requested that proper and urgent care of the track was needed, but to no avail. Though no senior
official of the Sports Department or the Principal of the
Sports College was available for comments on account of
holidays, sources in the department said the track and
the college was not being maintained properly as the
department had no money.
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Sachin lacks captain’s qualities NO one in his right senses can challenge the fact that Sachin is the best batsman in the world but that is where it all stops. As for his captaincy and team management skills the less said the better. But the situation so demands that a lot should be said. Sachin is a hero. He has taken Indian cricket to new heights. He has given a new definition to batting. He has even impressed the great Don. But are we not getting a little confused? How do his achievements purely as a batsman make him an automatic choice for captain, especially when his first stint as captain proved to be a complete disappointment. Both Jadeja and Ganguly have impressed more in the role of captain. Tendulkar’s captaincy in the ongoing series down under leaves a lot to be desired. On more than one occasion in the recently concluded Test series he let the opposition off the hook due to lack of ideas in crunch situations. His unwillingness to take the initiative and his over defensive approach has contributed in a major way towards India’s dismal showing. To make matters worse his personal bias is affecting his judgement. Just like no one can challenge his status as the best batsman, no one can also challenge Azhar’s claim for a slot in the Indian squad. VIVEK SOOD Indian defeats It is really disheartening to see India losing all the three one-dayers. The problem with the Indians is lack of consistency. We are over dependent on Tendulkar who is not performing well these days. The other batsmen have the capability of scoring runs but they do not have the ability to win matches for the country. BALWANT GULERIA II The third league match of the one-day triangular series at Melbourne between India and Australia was important for India. However, Australia won the match by 29 runs . They seemed to be in winning mood after losing the first match to Pakistan. They played with confidence. On the other hand the Indians played without any planning. Surprisingly, despite the huge target of 269 runs set by Australia, India started with Saurav Ganguly and Laxman and the latter could not perform according to expectations. India even took the risk of sending S Dighe three down which did not help. SUNIL GULERIA Laxman’s knock Hats of to VVS Laxman for his glorious knock of 167 in the final cricket Test against Australia. He played a chivalrous innings to crack his maiden Test century in his 17th Test. He was the embodiment of grace, elegance, elan, determination, calm and composure while playing brilliant shots all over the ground. He treated pace sensation Brett Lee and spin wizard Shane Warne with utter disdain as he smashed them with stunning fours repeatedly. He kept on playing magnificent and impeccable shots despite wickets tumbling at the other end regularly. Refusing to go into a defensive shell, he launched a fierce onslaught on the Aussie bowlers forcing them into submission. However, his tremendous effort went in vain as India could not escape the 0-3 drubbing. TARSEM S BUMRAH |
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