Distress signals from track and field

The blame game is on in Indian athletics. Tears and excuses are also not in short supply.

An edifice carefully built over the last few seasons is crumbling.

A vicious circle of drugs, unscrupulous officialdom, coaches from Eastern Europe and a bunch of naive athletes has finally been exposed, with the result that the glowing deeds of the season gone by must be viewed from a different perspective now.



Even when the athletes turned in eye-catching performances at the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games last year, those in the know refused to take the deeds at face value. Six positive tests – two of them from the golden relay quartet – have shown that those suspicions weren’t unfounded at all. The edifice, obviously, didn’t have a strong base to keep it upright, keep it strong.

The athletes concerned, Mandeep Kaur notably, have pointed fingers at the officialdom and suggested that they might have ingested the banned substances through food supplements. But the rules do not provide escape routes on this count alone, for a sportsperson is solely responsible for the substances found in their samples.

Contaminated food supplements have often been blamed for positive dope cases in the international arena and anti-doping agencies have repeatedly issued warnings about their use. Citing ignorance, or pointing fingers at others, serve little purpose but worldwide, athletes still take recourse to it.

More than food supplements, however, it is the role of the foreign coaches that has come under the scanner after the recent spate of positive cases. Over the years, the reliance on foreign experts, mainly from Eastern Europe, has been a topic of discussion in Indian athletics circles, with former athletes and coaches repeatedly pointing out that all was not well in the national camps.

These coaches, doctors and recovery experts have been accused of adopting wrong methods in their eagerness to fetch instant results, and as such, a longer stay in their jobs, besides bigger pay packets.

Spectacular rise and inexplicable dips in performances have been attributed to the use of drugs. Viewed from that angle, the return of foreign experts after the Asian Games high certainly resulted in improved performances in quick time, as evidenced in some of the results from the Inter-State Championships in Bangalore last month.

“Athletics Federation of India bosses have repeatedly shunned our coaches, saying we were not capable of producing results,” said a veteran Indian coach. “If you look at it, we did bring results, like in the Asian Games of 1978. But the arrival of these Ukrainian coaches and training trips to Ukraine have all led to the current situation. When you look at it, there is no consistency in performance and you can witness sudden improvements in certain athletes when only years of hard work can result in better times in normal course.”

This isn’t the first time Indian athletes are failing drug tests. The Sunita Rani episode at Busan in 2002 and the Neelam J Singh positive case at the World Championships in 2005 revealed the dark deeds behind the scenes. Seema Antil’s brush with doping authorities too is well-known. But the Athletics Federation of India used all its powers to help the culprits wriggle out, though it had to eventually bow to the international body in the case of discus thrower Neelam.

However, with the New Delhi lab not having an accreditation from the World Anti-Doping Agency, the authorities were able to cover up instances of doping with no proper follow-up action possible. With the lab getting the WADA accreditation last year ahead of the Commonwealth Games, the scenario is changing fast and the establishment of the National Anti-Doping Agency too has served to highlight the flaws in the Indian sporting system, where short-cuts and instant results are the way of life.

Of course, NADA has some way to go before achieving its goal, but if the shock waves generated by the latest positive cases can lead to a clean-up operation, it would have already done a great service to Indian sport.