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Dancesport for Asiad FIELD DAY FOR DANCE: The dancing duo of Priti Gupta and Shannon Benjamin has contributed a lot to the promotion of Indian dancesport Reeling under its own weight WHY WEIGHT AND WATCH: The malaise of doping afflicting Indian weightlifters should have been nipped in the bud Fitness
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Ballroom dancing is the latest sport to be included in the 2010 Asian Games, writes Donald Banerjee Ballroom dancing is all set to enter the Asiad arena as a medal sport in the 16th Asian Games to be held at Guangzhou, China, in November this year. This traditional dance form has taken the shape of a captivating sport and is today recognised as DanceSport by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The new-look competitive dance form has drawn people from all over the world to its fascinating and tantalising orbit. Controlled by the International DanceSport Federation (IDSF), this dancesport is a recognised sport of the national olympic committees in 88 countries spread over five continents. Dancesport, which was included in the World Games as an official sport for the fourth time at Finland in 2009, is all set to become a medal sport in the Olympic Games. This sport was among the events reviewed by the IOC Sports Department and the Olympic Programme International Olympic Committee honorary president Juan Antonia Samaranch has commended dancesport on the growth it has achieved. He has also suggested further efforts to secure the recognition and support of the National Olympic Committees (NOCs). It is the floorcraft and artistic interpretation of the dance forms that make it a captivating sport The forms comprise standard (waltz, tango, Viennese waltz, slow foxtrot and quickstep) and Latin American (samba, cha cha cha, rumba, paso doble and jive) dances. The IDSF was recognised by the IOC as the sole representative for dancesport way back in 1997. At that time, the membership of the world body fell far
short of the IOC charter. Under Chapter 52 of the charter, a sport must be practised by men in 75 countries on four continents, and by women in 40 countries on three continents. Now, with its phenomenal growth of, dancesport event is all set to become an Olympic medal sport. After being included as a medal sport in the East Asian Games, South East Asian Games and World Games, dancesport will make its debut in the 2010 Asian Games as a medal sport. At the World Games held in Finland last year, dancesport was the biggest spectator sport. And in the years to come, it may be the biggest money grosser as a captivating glamour event on the lines of figure skating in the Winter Olympics. India made their debut in this sport when the national duo of Priti Gupta, a doctor, and Shannon Benjamin made it to the second indoor Asian Games held at the Macao East Asian Dome in November, 2007. Dancesport is comparatively new in India. The All-India DanceSport Federation (AIDSF) came into being in 2003 and got almost immediate recognition from the IDSF. The AIDSF is also recognised by the Indian Olympic Association and is among the 88 dance bodies in the world recognised by their respective national Olympic committees. Priti and Shannon are today popularly known as India's “Golden Couple”. They captured the fourth place in an internatinal dancesport event in Sri Lanka and made a grand entry in the Macau Indoor Asian Games in 2007.
Priti, a physiotherapist by profession, and Shannon, an IT brain, were infatuated by DanceSport in 2006, and since then they haven’t looked back. They have been representing India in Latin American and Standard Ballroom dance competitions. In the Asian Indoor Games, organised by the Olympic Council of Asia at Macau in November, 2007, the Mumbai duo made it to the quarter-final in the Grade A Latin. Priti got her name registered in the Limca Book of Records for being the main dancer in the 'World's Longest Dance Party', dancing non-stop for 55 hours and 55 minutes. This dancing duo was a big draw when it coached the Chandigarh team for the national DanceSport Championship. The Chandigarh DanceSport Associaton (CDSA) has roped in the “Golden Couple” for another coaching session this year. And according to the CDSA secretary general, Gursharan Singh Sethi, the response to this dancesport is overwhelming in the region. The Chandiarh body was formed barely two years back. According to Sethi, the dancing duo will train dancers at Punjab Bhavan in Chandigarh from February 15 to 20. The one-day Chandigarh State Dancesport Championship will be held at the Sector 10 Skating Rink. Based on the performance of the dancing couples in this championship, the Chandigarh team for the National DanceSport Championship will be selected. |
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Indian weightlifting is burdened with a mess that needs to be cleared up on a priority, writes Ravi Dhaliwal Weightlifting is a sport languishing at the hands of the three viruses that seem to have afflicted Indian sports. A powerless federation, poor coverage on television and a blurring of the distinction between charity and sponsorship. At a time when the iron sport needs to put its best foot forward to attract sponsorship, Indian weightlifting is virtually invisible on the electronic media. When it does appear, it gets such a shoddy coverage that it hardly grabs any eyeballs. The electronic media, however, follows international weightlifting with relish. See how the Hungarian and Bulgarian weightlifting federations got rich through television coverage and sponsorship. Somebody should yank the Indian Weightlifting Federation (IWF) out of slumber. Leave alone the lack of a TV audience, in India the sport is
afflicted with yet another malaise that is threatening to finish it: doping. In the last 12 months, six top Indian lifters have been caught using IOC-banned drugs, forcing the international body to slap a $ 5-lakh penalty on the Indian Federation. If the Indian Weightlifting Federation (IWF) pays the fine, the team will participate in the all-important Commonwealth Games. If it does not, the Indian lifters will have to cool their heels in their homes. Going by what senior IWF officials say, these six cases are
just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Scratch the surface a little and see how the doping dust hits you in the face. Even more Kafkaesque in nature are the views expressed by the lifters who have retired from the sport. Not willing to be quoted for obvious reasons, they reveal the nexus between the coaches, federation officials and China and well-known European weightlifting countries, from where top-quality and highly effective steroids, particularly anabolic ones, are allegedly smuggled. The lifters and coaches want fame and departmental promotions. That explains the nexus to a certain extent. Not everyone knows how the Indians escaped an imminent ban for participation in the Commonwealth Games. The fact is that hectic parleys between the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) officials and top International Weightlifting Federation officials, including its president, Dr Tamas Ajan, ensured that the Indians pay the fine and escape the ban, which would have put egg on the face of the beleaguered IWF. Indian weightlifting, like Indian hockey, has the mentality of a manufacturer who makes good stuff and then hides it in brown corrugated boxes. The sport needs to go to the people with a smart offering: it needs to say 'come buy me’ rather than 'please support me'. But before that, it has to rid itself of the scourge of doping. The question that remains unanswered is: why do lifters take to drugs? Says Dr Ashok Ahuja, former head of the Sports Medicine faculty, National Institute of Sports (NIS), Patiala, and the man who is credited with having tested hundreds of dope-affected athletes, “The whole
menace started during the 1990 Auckland Commonwealth Games when Subroto Kumar Paul was caught for drug abuse. Then, we had lifters who tested positive in the 2004 Athens Olympics. Once you win, even if by cheating, you stand to gain in various ways. The ghost of doping haunting Indian weightlifting refuses to go away. Recently, the Indian team was abruptly withdrawn from the Goyang World Championship because blood testing was to be introduced there. In blood testing, any lifter who has used the IOC-banned drugs in the past two years can be caught. It is a known fact that top Indian lifters regularly use these drugs and that is why the IWF did not feel it prudent to field the team at Goyang,” remarks Dr Ahuja. Unfortunately, the menace was not nipped in the bud and, like any other social ill, it spread its tentacles among junior lifters. The dependence on drugs became so much that lifters could not train without getting a high. A source disclosed that foreign coaches started minting money by bringing drugs from their countries to make a quick buck and, at the same time, prove their credibility. A senior athletic coach disclosed that they also face the same problem in some events like shot-put, discus and hammer throw. “The growth hormone, which is normally present in the body, is the latest hit and even the Delhi Sports Authority of India’s (SAI) laboratory has not started testing for it. It has side-effects on the skeletal and cardiac systems of the athletes,” says Dr Ahuja, who feels sad about the entire scenario. “There is no hotline set up till yet where an athlete can discuss the drug abuse problem, while countries like Australia and Canada have a 24-hour online service. But our very own National Anti Doping Agency (NADA) has yet to take off despite the rapid increase in the positive cases,” he adds. Blood doping, a hit among Indian lifters, is highly dangerous. It has become an integral part of weightlifting as it enhances a lifter’s performance by increasing the red blood cell mass, thereby delivering more oxygen to the muscles. Special concern has been expressed that the cardiovascular system of a lifter undergoing this procedure could be in jeopardy. Still, there are athletes who will put themselves at risk just to experience the thrill of being number one, regardless of the outcome. “Each year, an athlete’s ability to perform seems to increase by leaps and bounds. Some reasons for this increase can be attributed to better training methods, better conditioning techniques, and better overall health of the athlete. Some athletes always seem to go a step further. They engage in a process called blood doping. This procedure does increase their athletic ability, but potentially may do more harm than good,” says a former chief coach of the men’s weightlifting squad. In India, weightlifting coaches are hired and then fired for no reason at all. Their only fault is that some of their trainees get caught for doping and the responsibility is fixed on the coach. Recently, just before the Goyang world championships, apparently to send a message that everything is fine with weightlifting in the country, the IWF sacked three top coaches involved in the preparation of lifters for the Commonwealth Games without assigning any reason. This development came a day ahead of the Executive Board meeting of the International Weightlifting Federation at Goyang. The meeting was to decide the quantum of ban to be imposed on the Indian federation because six of its lifters had tested positive for dope in the past year. The coaches who were sacked included Arjuna awardee Karunakaran, R.K Malhotra and Shyamala Shetty. Interestingly, all three of them were associated with the preparations of the Indian team which took part in the Commonwealth weightlifting championship held in Malaysia in November last year, where the Indians ended up winning 27 medals. Such are the ways of the IWF. The bottomline is clear. Until and unless TV is brought into the picture, sponsors roped in and the sport is cleansed of the doping stains, weightlifting will remain the unwanted baby of Indian sport. |
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Fitness
mantra Nothing is perfect." The statement is true for food as well. There is no food item which has all the nutritional supplements. Still, milk is something which, if not perfect, at least comes next to perfection in the food world. The nutritional facts on milk prove that milk has most of the nutrients that your body needs to carry out its daily functions. You will find carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals in milk. This group covers liquid milk, milk powder, fermented milk products like curd, buttermilk etc. Milk should find a place in any balanced diet, particularly a vegetarian one, to provide some good-quality protein, sufficient calcium and riboflavin which are difficult to obtain in adequate quantities solely from plant foods. The amount of nutrition per glass (250 ml) is: Carbohydrates: Approximately 13 gm of carbohydrates. Carbohydrates found in milk are in a di-saccharide (made of two sugar units) form called lactose. It is also sometimes referred to as milk sugar. One molecule of lactose is made of one molecule of glucose and fructose each. Fats: Between cow and buffalo milk, the latter has a high content of fat. The fat content in 250 ml of cow’s milk is approximately 10.3 g, whereas of buffalo milk it is 16 g. But if we boil the milk, store it in the fridge for cooling and consume it after removing the layer of cream; approximately 80-90 per cent of the fat is removed. Vitamins: Milk is a very rich source of vitamins. A glass of 250 ml milk meets approximately 44 per cent of your body's daily requirement of vitamins. The amount of Vitamin A is 450 IU, Vitamin D is 127 IU, Vitamin K is 0.2 mcg, riboflavin is 0.5 mg, niacin is 0.3 mg, folate is 12.2 mcg, Vitamin B6 is 0.1 mg, Vitamin B12 is 1.1 mcg, pantothenic acid is 0.9 mg and that of chlorine is 43.2 mg. Milk lacks Vitamins C, E and B1. Minerals: A glass of milk (250 ml) has approximately 300 mg of calcium, 6.3 mcg of fluoride, 0.4 mg of iron, 8.1 mcg of selenium, 26.8 mg of magnesium, 1.0 mg of zinc, 232 mg of phosphorus, 107 mg of sodium and 290 mg of potassium. Copper is absent in milk. You will get all these minerals by drinking a single glass of milk. Fermented milk products represent a rich source of nutrients. These include curd/yogurt, buttermilk and fermented milk drinks available in the market. The fermentation process improves lactose digestion through the breaking down of lactose into glucose and galactose by bacterial enzymes .The transformation of lactose into lactic acid is the most significant phenomenon during the fermentative process which makes it more digestable. At present, the development of new infant formulas able to interact and modulate the intestinal flora is believed to be an important new approach to positively influencing the incidence of gastro-intestinal, respiratory, and allergic diseases in early childhood. These kinds of formulas may consist of either fermented milk formulas or formulas containing probiotics and prebiotics.
A glass of 250 ml milk and 200 gm of curd is good enough for an adult. Postmenopausal women and young females who are vegetarian can add a glass of skimmed milk or a cup of curd more in their diet to prevent osteoporosis as their requirement of calcium is more in these stages. Skimmed milk has no fat but the same level of protein and sugar. So, kids and teenagers can have full cream milk if they are not overweight and are physically active, adults can go in for skimmed milk to have all its goodness except fat. Having milk as such is so much fun and healthy as it has natural sugars and nothing nearly is required to be added in milk if once you develop a taste for plain cold milk! (Sorry bournvitas and boosts!). People who don’t like drinking milk can ‘eat’ it in form of paneer (1 glass milk is equivalent to 50 gm paneer), kheer, custard etc (1cup custard= 200 ml milk) Kids hating the idea of milk and milk products can be tricked to have it by adding milk powder (without sugar) in their rotis or soups! 1 glass of milk equals to approximately 25-30 gm of milk powder. They can also savour it in the form of kulfis or icecreams (1 medium sized kulfi=250 ml milk) which can be made by using skimmed milk powder instead of cream. Having milk in fermented form (curd, lassi of fermented milk drinks) is the best thing for people who cannot tolerate lactose and get upset stomach or gas formation by drinking milk. In addition, it will also boost their immunity level. Research has already given more credit to fermented milk consumption. So, now you can understand the reason why mothers run behind their kids with a glass full of milk or maybe now, they’ll run with a glassful of lassi or a cupful of curd! — The writer is a dietician at
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Ballroom dancing is all set to enter the Asiad arena as a medal sport in the 16th Asian Games to be held at Guangzhou, China, in November this year. This traditional dance form has taken the shape of a captivating sport and is today recognised as DanceSport by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The new-look competitive dance form has drawn people from all over the world to its fascinating and tantalising orbit. Controlled by the International DanceSport Federation
(IDSF), this dancesport is a recognised sport of the national olympic committees in 88 countries spread over five continents.
Weightlifting is a sport languishing at the hands of the three viruses that seem to have afflicted Indian sports. A powerless federation, poor coverage on television and a blurring of the distinction between charity and sponsorship. At a time when the iron sport needs to put its best foot forward to attract sponsorship, Indian weightlifting is virtually invisible on the electronic media.
