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| Edited By: G Krishnan |Source: DNA |Updated: Sep 05, 2018, 06:55 AM IST
Former Olympian and president of Athletics Federation of India, Adille Sumariwalla talks to G Krishnan about the showing in Jakarta and future
This is the beginning. Are we capable? Yes. Will it happen? I hope so. Are we doing our best? Yes. If everybody continues to work as a team like we did in the Asian Games, I am hopeful we will win a medal.
We need to keep our athletes away from the so-called armchair advisors. If we do that and follow the programme that we have chalked out for 2020, am very hopeful we will get a few medals at the Tokyo Olympics.
Well, do I need to spell them out? It is shown in performance. I don't need to spell it out. It is very important to be able to continuously compete with the best.
It is not whether I am happy or not. We sit with the coaches, the team management, planning committee and then we decide. For example, if before the Asian Games, we need a stint there, the weather will be like this, it is a very detailed planning. The level of competitions, so and so will run, the 400m guys will run 200m, etc. It is all planned by a whole team of people. After it is planned, we agree or disagree, then we go to the government and tell them our plan. The government will ask us questions before approving. For me, if they meet the targets, I am happy. All coaches have been given targets. We have an online monitoring system, every coach has to fill it, then we study, ask the coaches why monthly or quarterly targets are not met. It is all very very professionally done, not just off-the-cuff stuff.
This remote areas thing, I am not able to understand. Swapna finished fifth in 2014 Asian Games. She has been training for four years. Poor girl got injured in between. GoSports is supporting her. For the last so many months, Hima is training abroad with Galina Bukharina. They are all part of our inter-district programme on the basis of which they have come up and got selected. Yes, India is a very large country and people will come from remote areas. I always believe that people from remote areas will do very well because for them, it is a life-and-death situation. They will work hard. They have the killer instinct to achieve what they want to. They have been given the best training. Galina herself is an Olympic medallist (4x100m relay bronze, 1968 Mexico Games with the then Soviet Union). It is not that we have picked up the coach from somewhere to train our athletes. Galina has transformed Hima from 55.8 seconds in 400m in East Zone Junior championships last year to 50.79s this Asiad. Nobody is talking about Galina. She has given six of the 19 medals in athletics. We need to give her credit. They (foreign coaches) come to our country and work as if they are part of India and produce results.
We realised that they (Bahrain) had the fastest girl (Salwa Naser) who won the 400m and who is a world leader. They had the fastest hurdler (Aminat Jamal) who is also a world leader, they also had a bronze medallist and another girl running 53.4s. It was close to impossible to beat that combination. And, the biggest scare we had was when Hima jumped over the Bahraini girl in the mixed relay. She got a little strain in her leg. At one stage, we were even contemplating if we should run or not. We gave her all the tests and she was okay to run. We said 'let's go for a gamble – all or nothing'. We said 'gold or nothing'. We explained to the girls we will change the whole thing around and turn the order so Hima could give us the lead. We did not want Hima to run against the world's fastest runner when she was injured. We said she will run first and give us the lead so that Poovamma, the most experienced girl, will run the second leg. Then we had Sarita Gayakwad, absolutely new kid who has never run except at the meet in Europe. And Vismaya is brand new. These are our three junior athletes. In 4x400 relay, you get boxed in during the exchange when everybody comes in together and the girls would get flustered. When you have the lead, you don't get boxed in. You save time during the baton exchange. This strategy was discussed at 4 in the morning. And it really paid off. This is how our strategies work. We took timing of each of those people, checked how much ahead they would be on running speed, how much we could make up in the baton exchange. The only way to make up is not to run in the group.
Manjit at this point is very good in his race. Actually, he did not follow the strategy he was told. If he followed it, he would have come first in 1,500m. He missed the strategy.
I think more events like the mixed relay will continue to happen. They are looking at changing formats, they are looking at making athletics more interesting.
We hope that all our emulate the past athletes. We should forget the Milkha Singhs and the PT Ushas. In PT Usha's time, there was no Chinese, no Central Asians running, no Africans running. Things have completely changed. Yes, they were good in their days and were great. We have to move to the next generation.
That's okay. We have to be world class. Yes, our tally would have increased by 8 gold medals. But, let us not bother about them. We have to run against the best. There is no issue of who you are running against. We would have got eight more medals, improved our tally, would have been ahead of China. But that is not the point. We need to seriously think of Olympics and World Championships. How long are we going to hide under Asian Games? We have to move on. I am not bothered by the Africans. Our athletes have to aim higher to do better.
India’s gold medal winning heptathlete Swapna Barman arrives from Indonesia at the IGI Airport in New Delhi on Monday —PTI
GOLD MEDALS – 7
Manjit Singh, Men's 800m, 1:46.15s (Personal Best)
Jinson Johnson, Men's 1500m, 3:44.72s
Tejinderpal Singh Toor, Men's Shot Put, 20.75m (Games Record)
Neeraj Chopra, Men's Javelin Throw, 88.06m (national record)
Arpinder Singh, Men's Triple Jump, 16.77m
Women's 4x400m relay (Hima Das, Poovama Raju Machettira, Saritaben Laxmanbhai Gayakwad, Vismaya Velluva Koroth), 3:28.72s
Swapna Barman, Women's Heptathlon, 6026 pts (Personal Best)
SILVER MEDALS – 10
Yahiya Muhammed Anas, Men's 400m, 45.69s
Jinson Johnson, Men's 800m, 1:46.35s
Dharun Ayyasamy, Men's 400m Hurdles, 48.96s (National Record)
Men's 4 x 400m Relay (Kuthu Muhammed Puthanpurakkal, Dharun Ayyasamy, Muhammed Anas, Aarokiarajiv), 3:01.85s
Dutee Chand, Women's 100m, 11.32s and Women's 200m, 23.30s (Personal Best)
Hima Das, Women's 400m, 50.79s (National Record)
Sudha Singh, Women's 3000m Steeplechase, 9:40.03s
Neena Varakil, Women's Long Jump, 6.51m
Mixed relay (Hima Das, Poovama Raju Machettira, Muhammed Anas Yahiya, Aarokiarajiv), 3:15.71s
BRONZE MEDALS – 2
Palakeezh Unnikrishnan Chitra, Women's 1500m, 4:12.56s
Seema Punia, Women's Discus Throw, 62.26m
