NEW DELHI: Sports ministry secretary and SAI DG Injeti Srinivas said that the SAI would closely monitor the issue surrounding Manish Rawat, Khushbir Kaur, and Alexander Artsybaschev following Saturday’s turn of events.
Two of the country’s best race walking talents — Manish and Khushbir — missed the National Race Walking Championships prompting the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) to remove them from the upcoming Asian Championships in Japan on March 20. A case of claim and counter-claim has followed over the last 48 hours, with Russian coach Artsybaschev, who was not ready to include their names.
“I don’t want to comment on micro issues but we will monitor all these things very closely from now onwards,” Srinivas, who was attending the final day of the ITTF India Open here, said. Artsybashev’s contract expires after the World Championships in London in August but what complicates matters is his role in India’s unexpected rise.
On another issue that’s been giving sleepless nights to the body — a new coach for the U-17 national football team — he assured there will be an appointment made in the next week. “We have received many applications. An announcement will be made before the end of the month.”
But the main agenda for the day was aggressively promoting sport as a compulsory subject within the framework of the Indian school system. “There have been moves made to see that it happens in the next academic year or the year following that,” he said. He hoped that all schools would have a total of six periods specifically dedicated to sport in a week. “It should be like any other subject.” There have also been feelers sent to see that it becomes a graded subject but that will take some more time.
When the conversation shifted to one of his pet topics — bringing about a conscious change so as to make the country more invested in sports — he offered the example of Great Britain and track cycling. “In 2002, when they hosted the Commonwealth Games, they were a non-entity in cycling. Today, they are able to win a handful of gold in it.”
He identified quite a few sports that are capable of starting a similar pathway. “Nobody is saying we should be able to win medals in swimming. But it’s time we had, say, five people qualifying with ‘A’ times. That would be step one and so on.” He needn’t have needed to think long and hard for an apt example. Japan embarked on a plan to become a world leader in table tennis 10 years ago. On Sunday, they had a 13-year-old playing in the men’s final.
swaroop@newindianexpress.com