Neglect of Athletics

Neglect of Athletics.

Athletics is the most glamorous event in the Olympics and an athletic medal carry much weight than any other medal.  In athletics also short distance running like 100 M and 200 M are considered to be the most fascinating events and 100 M winner in Olympics is considered as the fastest man on the earth. Despite the glory of athletics the world over, in India athletics is a neglected field. This is evident from the fact that so many promising and talented athletes emerge at junior and sub junior levels, but many of them go into oblivion before reaching senior level due to lack of recognition, lack of facilities etc.  Many people especially the youngsters may not believe that way back in 1952 Lavy Pinto reached the semi finals of 100 M and 200 M at Helsinki Olympics.  After that we could reach nowhere near that standard including at Asian level.  India’s latest best performance in short distance was at the 2000 Jakarta Asian Championship, where Anil Kumar won silver in 100 M.

Competitions at international levels are very tough and it requires highest quality of training, best diet and much needed international exposure.  In fact training is required at foreign countries to enable them to compete with world class athletes.  P T Usha arguably the finest women athlete India have ever produced, did not get  much competitive exposure as there was no pacers to enable her to improve her timings.

Anil Kumar silver medalist at Jakarta championship recently revealed, “I was so confident after that Asian Medal; I even told officials that if I did not go below 10 seconds after American training, I would reimburse all the money they would spend on me. But it didn’t   work “. What more our authorities require to send a promising and talented athlete for foreign training? What a tragedy! Present day athletes will be also having lot of grievances and they have nobody, not only to air their grievances but also to share their sorrows and sufferings. It is the duty of AFI, SAI and Ministry of Sports to ensure that their genuine grievances are resolved to enable them to enable them to give their best performance at international competitions. Let us not wait till their retirement to know about their problems of the past. Anil Kumar’s startling revelations should be a lesson for the authorities to act without wasting further time.

Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports selected 45 sports persons for financial assistance under the Target Olympic Podium (TOP) scheme. Selected athletes include 17 shooters and six shuttlers and only 5 sports persons were selected from Athletics. The TOP list does not include 3 promising and talented athletes qualified for the world athletic championship, out of which one of them is “arguably the finest athlete of the country at present” as per Athletic Federation of India. The coach of an athlete OP Jaisha who qualified for World Athletic Championship  gets a salary of Rs 5 lacs plus accommodation plus perks whereas she don’t get even Rs 5000/= as monthly allowance.

The situation has not much improved over the years. Government spends crores of rupees in the name of sports, repeat in the name of sports, but only negligible percentage reaches the sports persons. No wonder we return from international sports meets with peanuts and become a laughing stock in the eyes of the world.

Let us hope for a favourable change and India becomes a super power in sports at least in Asian circuit. Legendary athlete Milkha Singh has a dream to see an Indian athletic winning an Olympic Medal in athletics during his life time. We can only hope and pray that his dream will become a reality.