KOCHI: Racewalker Manish Rawat said lack of communication between him and Russian coach Alexander Artsybashev had resulted in the former skipping the National Racewalking Championship in New Delhi.
The miss proved costly for Rawat and Khushbir Kaur — another trainee of Artsybashev — as the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) came down heavily on the duo and chose to overlook them for the Asian Racewalking Championship and IAAF Racewalking Challenge.
Speaking from Bengaluru — Rawat’s training base — the Uttarakhand athlete told Express that had the coach told him that participation was mandatory, he would have definitely participated in the event. “There was a breakdown in communication between us. It was mostly due to the language barrier. AFI contacted us only a day before the event. We weren’t ready then.
“If we’d been told well in advance to include it in our itinerary, I would’ve certainly raced in the event. Having done well in the Rio Olympics, I could have clocked a better time there,” said the athlete who finished 12th in Rio with 1:21.21s.
However, the 25-year-old said that what happened in Delhi won’t affect his future performance. “The coach has told me to focus on training alone. The past is the past. What I want now is more competitions, and I hope that the federation will be more than willing to arrange that.”
Rawat’s is the second-best time after KT Irfan’s national record of 1:20.21s, which was set during the London Olympics.
Each country is allowed three berths in an event, and the top three in the National Racewalking event had dipped under that mark. But with a Rio timing well below the World Championship qualifying cut-off of 1:24.00s, Rawat felt that he could be an automatic choice for the event in London this August.
“I hope to get an entry as my timing is good. Maybe I have to prove my fitness to the officials concerned. I’m in good shape, and I can scale up my performance before August with some outings.”
shan.as@newindianexpress.com