The Hindu : Sport / Athletics : Confusion prevails

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Feb 18, 2006

Sport

Sport - Athletics

Confusion prevails

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Where is the second National circuit meet of the season going to be held? Till late Friday evening, no one had an idea.

It could be at Patiala on Sunday as scheduled or else it could be at Ludhiana.

Nothing could have been more preposterous than this comical situation wherein even the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) seemed to be unsure of the venue, with less than 48 hours to go for the start of the meet.

Clarification

"The coaches want a few races to be held in cooler weather than we are having now. Hence we thought about running the meet under lights. But the NIS, Patiala does not have sufficient lights to take care of television coverage," said the AIF Secretary, Lalit Bhanot on Friday.

Ludhiana was apparently ready to take over at short notice, but people there were not sure about whether the floodlights at the Guru Nanak Dev Stadium could be made available! The lighting part is the responsibility of the municipal authorities there, not the stadium administrator's. And there was delay in getting confirmation on that. Obviously, there were financial implications as well.

Unprecedented

Never before has such a confusion been allowed to crop up, especially in AFI's scheduling. What has baffled those who follow the sport keenly is the argument about heat upsetting runners, especially 800-metre specialist Ghamanda Ram, and the distance runners in mid-February at a place like Patiala.

Even allowing for the sudden spurt in temperatures as evidenced during the past few days, Indian athletes have had experience of running in the heat of May and June in Delhi and elsewhere in the North the past two seasons and more. That too in the run-up to major international competitions.

The Commonwealth Games qualification alone cannot then be argued as the clinching argument in favour of a floodlit meet in a place like Patiala or Ludhiana. Especially when the distance runners cannot be counted as among contenders for a place in the team to Melbourne. Nor can anyone believe that Doodarshan's coverage or non-coverage of a few events towards the end of a day's programme would have mattered so much.

During the domestic meets the last two seasons at Patiala, in peak summer, the programme did end in near darkness. And there happened to be DD coverage on both occasions. Secondly, Patiala as a venue was decided months ago. Suddenly, the foreign coaches want cooler climes for our runners for the games that will be held in the Australian summer!

Fear of WADA?

The recent happenings of athletes disappearing when a World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) team visited Patiala and subsequent suspensions have not been forgotten by any even as the AFI groped in the dark about the floodlights. The fear of the WADA team coming back is very much on everyone's minds. For, it has been chasing our athletes right from Potchefstroom, South Africa.

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