Efimova, six other Russian swimmers banned
PARIS: FINA has ruled that seven Russian swimmers, including breaststroke medal hopeful Yulia Efimova, are ineligible to compete in the Rio Olympics, world swimming’s governing body said on Monday.
IOC ruled against a blanket ban on Russian athletes but allowed sports federations to decide on individual cases.
“FINA acknowledges and supports the IOC’S position in respect of the participation of clean Russian athletes to the Olympic Games in Rio,” it said in a statement.
Russian swimmers Mikhail Dovgalyuk, Natalia Lovtcova and Anastasia Krapivina were also withdrawn. Nikita Lobintsev, Vladimir Morozov and Daria Ustinova are ineligible to compete at the Rio Games as their names appeared in a recent (WADA) Independent Person report, FINA said. Nostalgia can play tricks with memory, magnify and exaggerate the past, make it appear grander than what it may have been in real time. Having made this disclaimer, let it also be stressed that there are certain eras and players who have withstood the scrutiny of time and if anything, the present may be dwarfing and not doing justice to their achievements.
Watching Viv Richards and Sunil Gavaskar in the commentary box sharing their opinion on the Antigua Test, set off a chain of thought that evoked a magnificent era of batsmanship that even the best today would find hard to emulate.
No two people could have been as different as these two. One was broad, muscular and exuded selfconfidence in such abundance that even before he had faced a ball, much of the battle had already been won. In his vocabulary, the grammar of batting was meant to be flirted with. He could emasculate the leather with his raw power. He was audacity personified and the bowlers feared him as if they were about to face a nightmare.
The other was a midget in comparison. You wouldn’t notice him in a crowd and even feared for his life, wondering how he would cope against the fearsome pace and hostility of the West Indian fast bowlers. But he had masterly skills, was orthodox to the core and had monk-like resolve and patience that mesmerized the world. He did not annihilate an attack, he just subdued them with his text-book defensive technique and scored runs as if paying respect to the best coaching manuals was his duty.
One played for a team that dominated the sport, the other for a country that rarely knew how to win. The only thing they had in common was that they played without wearing helmets! Richards and Gavaskar are the two most outstanding batsmen the game has ever known, their careers running almost parallel to each other in the ’70s and ’80s. They were supreme examples of