Country’s rowing hub has no oars

CHANDIGARH: The Sports Authority of India’s (SAI) water sports centre at Alappuzha, where rowing trainee Aparna Ramabhadran committed suicide, is the country’s top centre for rowing.

At last year’s senior nationals in Pune, out of the eight gold medals at stake in the women’s section, the Alappuzha trainees pocketed six gold and two silver. At the National Games in Kerala this year, women trainees of the centre won four gold and as many silver.

When it comes to facilities, the centre has none. The fitness centre doesn’t have specific training machines for water sports and there is a shortage of rowing equipment too.

The trainees get to train on water for only six-seven months. The rest of the time they have to depend on groundwork. Housing 40 trainees in rowing, the centre has only 11 boats and surprisingly no oars.

The trainees are dependent on the Kerala Rowing Association for oars, which issues its oars during training for competitions. The number of boats too is insufficient so only those age-group trainees get to practice whose competitions are approaching.

“As the centre doesn’t have oars, we provide trainees with the association’s personal oars,” said Sreekumara Kurup, secretary-general of the Kerala Rowing Association.

SHORT OF COACHES TOO The last couple of weeks only sub-junior and challenger athletes are training on water as the Nationals are from June 9-14. The rest of the trainees are doing groundwork.

“It’s the country’s best training centre and the results speak about its stature. But when it comes to facilities, there are hardly any,” said Kurup.

“We have spoken to DG, SAI about the problems and have also requested him to depute an assistant director- level officer and more coaches. Right now there are only two coaches and looking at the number of trainees and the results the centre is producing, there should be more coaches,” he added. NEW DELHI: The Sports Authority of India director-general Injeti Srinivas is in fire-fighting mode following the suicide committed by Aparna Ramabhadran, a SAI centre trainee at Alappuzha. Immediately after returning to the Capital after spending nearly two days at the centre, Srinivas, in a hurriedly-convened press conference, said the officials and the inmates had no ideas of any harassment being meted out to the four girls who ate the poisonous fruit in a suicide pact. “I spoke to the warden and the inmates and none of them could figure what was wrong with the girls,” he said.

He, however, did not rule out foul play. “Something did happen. But what compelled the girls to take the extreme step that the law has to decide. There was a dying declaration... police has taken the statement of the girls and a few inmates, but I cannot talk about the veracity of these things as the matter is under investigation.”