AFIraisesdopingconcernsas athletesskipnationalcamp
THE MENACE Indian athletics body says not having elite competitors under its gaze means it can’t supervise them THE FAILURE TO REPEAT DOMESTIC PERFORMANCES AT MAJOR INTERNATIONAL MEETS HAS BECOME A TREND AMONG TOP ATHLETES.
With elite athletes avoiding the ongoing national camp,optingtotrainontheirown instead, theAthletics Federation ofIndia(AFI)hasraisedconcerns over doping ahead of the 2018 competitive season. The CommonwealthGamesinAustraliais thefirstmajorcompetitionofthe year, where the AFI expects to field teams in 400m men and women’s relay and individual events, subject to qualification.
AFI secretary-general, CK Valson, said: “We are unsure whether those training outside the national camp are clean as thereisnomonitoring.Ifathletes are skipping the national camp, wheretherearegoodfacilities, it doesraiseconcerns,”hetoldHindustanTimesfromVijayawada.
Last year, thrower Inderjeet Singh and sprinter Dharambir Singh---boundfortheRioOlympics --- had failed dope tests. The duo had skipped the national camp. Asian women’s shot-put champion,ManpreetKaur,who was training alone, was also caught for doping.
Asianchampionandnational record holder in men’s 400m MuhammedAnasisamongthose whohaveoptedout.Thenational camp started on October 1 at Patiala’s National Institute of Sports, but Anas didn’t report to train under Galina Bukharina.
Besides Anas, 400m runners Anu Raghavan and Anilda Thomas have also refused to attendthecamp.Formernational champion MR Poovamma, a member of the national relay team, has also stayed away.
Tamil Nadu’s Rajiv Arokia, a member of the men’s 400m relay team, is the fifth runner to skip the camp. It is surprising that thosewhoskippedthecampwere keen to join if it was shifted to south India. Acting on the request,theAFImovedthecamp to Thiruvananthapuram this weekbutnoneofthetoprunners have reported so far. “We will check with them whether they are keen or not,” said Valson.
He said some of the athletes were training with personal coaches at Thiruvananthapuram, but were reluctant to join thecamp.“Withfivemonthstogo for the Commonwealth Games, wedon’thaveanydataontheperformance of top 400m runners. Since we are aiming for the podium in men’s 4x400m relay, it’s worrying,” he said.
During its annual general body meeting here last month, the AFI decided that athletes skipping the national camp would be barred from national trials for international competitions. The move seems to have had little effect.
Thefailure to repeat domestic performances at major international meets has become a trend among top athletes.
Among the offenders is Anas (see box). Last year, he clocked 45.40 secs, a qualifying mark for the Olympics. But he failed to impress at Rio. This year, he bettered his 400m national mark to 45.32 secs, qualifying for the world athletics in London. He failedtorepeathistiming,casting a cloud over his national mark.
Women’snational400mchampion, Nirmala Sheoran, too has impressed at home but failed to click abroad. The Haryana runnerhasnotreportedforthecamp and the federation doesn’t know her whereabouts. Nirmala last tookpartinintheLondonworlds where she failed to progress beyond the semifinal.
“Her phone is switched off,” Haryana athletics official Raj Kumarsaid.Sheisontheradarof the National anti-doping body.
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