Anything to become an Olympian!

The 2016 athletics season in India is still continuing. And as it invariably happens, the international calendar has practically wound up barring the road races.

The Olympic year expectedly produced a string of “world-class performances” by Indian athletes. Administrators and fans alike expressed their happiness at the perceived strides the Indian athletes had made in the run-up to the Rio Games.

Coaches and administrators were not wary of forecasting “several” places in the final at Rio for the Indian athletes.

Can there be a medal, too? The question naturally came up. 

They did not rule it out, pointing out that a medal depended on a given day’s form. Anything could happen, they assured us. The Sports Authority of India (SAI) looked at a few charts and graphs and came to the conclusion a medal or two was possible.

The biggest Indian athletics squad numbering 36 (two athletes, shot putter Inderjeet Singh and sprinter Dharambir Singh, were suspended following positive dope results) in the largest Indian contingent for the Olympics, at 118, was entered.   Some of them spent months abroad in training camps that ostensibly provided ideal weather, accommodation and food.

Beats the Sydney number

The 36 beat the 29 that went to Sydney for the 2000 Games. Just as in Sydney, where K. M. Beenamol was the lone Indian athlete to cross the first round, in Rio, too, only one athlete came through the preliminary round. Steeplechaser Lalita Babar was a proud 10^th-place finisher in the Olympics.

Racewalker Manish Singh Rawat, with a 13^th-place finish in 20km, and marathon runners T. Gopi and Kheta Ram, finishing 25th and 26th, were other honourable exceptions from the Indian side in an otherwise dismal performance.

So, how did so many of our athletes record ‘phenomenal performances’ at home and abroad in order to qualify for Olympics and then fail so stunningly in Rio?

Some of us had reservations about at least some of the marks achieved by Indian athletes prior to Rio.  Were these performances “genuine” was a question that came up rather disturbingly.

No additional athletes, barring steeplechaser Sudha Singh had qualified from domestic meets this year in April and May, and through competitions in Poland, Chinese Taipei and Kyrgyzstan till the last week of June. Then the rush started culminating with the Bengaluru meet on the final day of Olympic qualification on July 11.

Now, less than a month after the Olympics, a few of the prominent international statisticians have also raised doubts about such performances. Not just from India but from other countries as well.

Mirko Jalava, who runs the very popular, highly acclaimed, Tilastopaja.com, Finland, that provides huge statistical data on athletics has listed as many as 39 results under the ‘doubtful/suspicious’ category that led to Olympic qualification.  

Three of the ‘suspicious’ results are by Indian athletes, two at Almaty, Kazakhstan in June and one at Bengaluru in July.

The doubtful Indian marks

The Indian marks listed are the 8.19m in long jump by Ankit Sharma and the 23.03s for the 200m by Srabani Nanda in Almaty, and the 17,30m achieved by Renjith Maheswary in triple jump in Bengaluru.

One more Indian result, that of 11.24s for the 100m by Dutee Chand in Almaty, has been mentioned among others as a possible consequence of a “faulty” timing system in the Kozanov memorial meet in the Kazakhstan city.

The only “consolation” for Indians in this assessment could be the fact that many other countries with several “doubtful” results have been listed by Jalava who has forwarded his list to the working group appointed by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) to look into these qualification marks achieved apparently through dubious means.

Mercifully, even the Athletics Federation of India (AFI), one heard, has raised “doubts” about some of the marks achieved by Indian athletes towards Rio qualification in its post-Olympics assessment.

“My suspicions are purely statistical, nothing to do with doping.,” Jalava wrote in an e-mail to this correspondent the other day.

Tilastopaja removes all doubtful results

Tilastopaja.com has removed all the ‘suspicious’ results including those by Dutee Chand (11.30s and 11.24s for 100m in Almaty on June 25) and Dharambir Singh (20.45s for 200 in Bengaluru on July 11) and categorized them as “irregular/doubtful”.  (Dharambir’s timing in any case is likely to be disqualified following his positive dope test)

These marks will no longer be listed at least on Tilastopaja as personal best or season best or national record (where applicable).

What decision the IAAF would take in respect of such doubtful marks is yet to be seen. The IAAF website does list all these marks as valid and regular.

Jalava’s “suspicious” list comprises nine athletes from Uzbekistan, six from Kazakhstan, five from Armenia, four from Moldova, three each from India and Iran, two from Georgia and one each from Bermuda, Bahrain, Costa Rica, Egypt, Jamaica, Saudi Arabia and Samoa.

A total of 52 results (not necessarily Olympic qualification marks) have been flagged by Jalava as “suspicious” with Kazakhstan alone contributing 13 of them, all but one from Almaty!

The Finn makes these observations in respect of Indian athletes:

Men: Long jump Name                      Country                                             Standard Ankit Sharma IND                                8.19 -16 Suspicious mark: 8.19 +0.1 Almaty KAZ 26 June 2016 Best outside suspicious: 7.92 0.0 Patiala IND 6 May 2016 Perf Rio 2016: 7.67 +0.1 Rio de Janeiro BRA 12 August 2016 Sequence of marks 2016: 7.89 – 7.66 – 7.81 – 7.76 – 7.92 – 7.67 – 8.19 (incl. 8.19-8.17-8.14) – 7.76 – 7.67 (Rio) Reason for suspicion: No jumps further than 7.92 outside Almaty in 2016, then suddenly three marks at 8.14 or better. Triple jump Renjith Maheswary IND                     17.30 -16 Suspicious mark: 17.30 +0.9 Bangalore IND 11 July 2016 Best outside suspicious: 16.56 Hyderabad IND 29 June 2016 Perf Rio 2016: 16.13 +0.5 Rio de Janeiro BRA 15 August 2016 Sequence of marks 2016: 16.45 – 16.16 – 16.35 – 16.47 – 16.56 – 16.43 – 17.30 (incl. 17.30-16.93-16.75-16.55) – 16.13 (Rio, incl. 16.13-15.99-15.80). Reason for suspicion: Result so much further than other meetings in 2016. Result achieved on the last day of qualification, July 11th. Women: 200m Srabani Nanda IND                               23.07 -16 Suspicious mark: 23.07 +0.7 Almaty KAZ 26 June 2016 Best outside suspicious: 23.36 0.0 New Delhi IND 30 April 2016 Perf Rio 2016: 23.58 -0.1 Rio de Janeiro BRA 15 August 2016 Sequence of marks 2016: 23.91 – 23.43 – 23.85 – 23.57 – 23.70 – 23.36 – 23.39 – 24.85 – 23.55 – 23.84 – 23.70 – 23.83 – 23.34 – 23.07 – 23.58 (Rio). Reason for suspicion: Entry standard achieved in Almaty is out of sequence. Three previous meets 23.84-23.70-23.83, then suddenly 23.07 and back to 23.58 in Rio. Looks like a possible timing problem, like in the W 100m in the same meet: Three best Almaty vs Rio: Zyabkina KAZ 22.66-23.34 Safronova KAZ 22.95-23.29 Nanda IND 23.07-23.58.

 The explanation regarding Dutee Chand’s timing can be made out from the following observations in respect of Kazakh Rima Kashafutdiinova’s 100m timing in Almaty:

Rima Kashafutdinova KAZ 1 11.31 -16 Suspicious mark: 11.31 +1.2 Almaty KAZ 25 June 2016 Best outside suspicious: 11.63 0.0 Bishkek KGZ 18 June 2016 Perf Rio 2016: 11.84 +0.3 Rio de Janeiro BRA 12 August 2016 Sequence of marks 2016: 11.67 – 11.63 – 11.46 – 11.31 – 11.84 (Rio). Reason for suspicion: Bettered 100m personal best by 0.32 seconds in one competition, which is impossible. There is a possibility, that the timing was faulty in Almaty in this race. Almaty vs Rio Zyabkina KAZ Almaty 11.15- Rio 11.69 Chand IND 11.24-11.69 Jassim BRN 11.26-11.72 Kashafutdinova KAZ 11.31-11.84. The differences are 0.44, 0.45, 0.46 and 0.52. Zyabkina’s best before Almaty was 11.27 in May and she ran 11.38 in Bishkek just a week before the 11.15. She then continued with 11.63 in France before 11.69 in Rio.

Jalava’s compilation gives a deep insight into the possible manipulation that goes on to facilitate Olympic qualification.

Bahrain’s Hajar Saad Al-Khaldi for example is shown to have improved her PB in women’s 100m from 11.91s in 2015 to 11.28s in Sofia, Bulgaria, on June 18 this year (OG standard 11.32s). She clocked 11.59s in Rio.

Moldovan woman shot putter Dimitriana Surdu jumped from her PB of 15.04 in 2015 to 17.85 in May this year to cross the Olympic standard of 17.75. Then came back to her original standard of 15.25 in Rio.

Discus thrower Nataliya Strutulat of Moldova did a 61.85 at home (OG standard 61.00). Her best outside her home this season was 57.52m. Predictably she slumped to 53.27m in Rio.

Hubbeling also raises doubts

 Meanwhile, Heinrich Hubbeling, the German statistician who brings out the annual Asian athletics rankings, has also brought out a list of ‘doubtful’ results. But this list is small, 13, and it does not mention an Indian result.

Hubbeling said some of the qualifiers managed standards in preliminaries but stayed away from finals.  A few of them tried to hide their form in Olympics by not finishing their competitions there.

Like Jalava, Hubbeling has also removed “doubtful” results from his top lists and is waiting to see whether the IAAF would be doing something in this respect.

Hubbeling’s list (matching that by Jalava) comprises five athletes each from Uzbekistan and Armenia and one each from Georgia, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.

A few samples from the list:

Uzbek Leonid Andreyev, a 33-year-old decathlete whose best was 7879 in 2014 achieved 8250 points in Tashkent (Olympic standard 8100) including five individual personal bests with that in high jump going up from 1.99m to 2.09m!

Amaliya Sharoyan, a woman long jumper from Armenia, registered 6.72m (standard 6.70m) at Elbasan, Albania, on May 21, did 6.15 at Pitesti, Romania, on June 6 and then managed 5.95 in Rio Olympics!

Georgian shot putter Benik Abramyan recorded 20.54 in Almaty on May 24 to improve his PB from 18.48 in 2011. (OG standard 20.50m). He had 18.72m in the Olympics. Incidentally he had served a two-year doping ban from 2012.

Uzbek woman 400m hurdler Natalya Asanova improved from her 2012 PB of 56.85 to 56.19 (OG standard 56.20). She had marks between 58 and 59 during the season except for one more of 56.33 in Tashkent three days before her Dushanabe PB. She timed 62.37s in Rio!

All these indicate, not for the first time though, how Olympic qualification standards are achieved in athletics. You can qualify through any national-level or any small international-level meet. Unlike in swimming, for example, there is no requirement of a pre-designated meet.

The AFI could arrange a few international relay races at short notice in Hyderabad and Bengaluru just in time to beat the July 11 deadline for our teams to qualify. Relay qualification earlier used to be through IAAF-designated meets. Not that it made qualification foolproof.

Unless the IAAF stipulates conditions for getting national and international meets approved for the purpose of qualification for Olympics (or World championships) “world-class” performances would be churned out in Dushanbe, Tashkent, Almaty and Hyderabad but quite predictably such athletes would fail miserably in the championships.

Sometimes these performances may be No. 1 or 2 or 3 in the world that season. That should not mislead the fans. But they do get misled. That is where the credibility of the sport gets eroded.

If the credibility has to improve, qualification process has to be tightened. Let National federations invite IAAF-appointed technical delegates with impeccable credentials to oversee qualification meets. And of course there has to be mandatory dope-testing under the supervision of IAAF/WADA delegates.

Well, they might say this could turn out to be very expensive. Yes, spend the money to protect clean athletes; spend it to uphold the purity of sport, spend it to bolster the credibility of the sport.