KOCHI: Dmitry Vinyakin, the foreign sprint coach attached with 4x100m women’s relay team, was so furious on Tuesday evening that he stopped the training midway and stormed off the ground at NIS Patiala, where the Olympic preparatory camp is going on. What provoked the otherwise soft-spoken Ukrainian coach was that the training of the team had hit a roadblock as Srabani Nanda, an essential cog in the team’s scheme of things, was yet to return to the camp since leaving for Europe for competitions.
Absence of the Odisha girl, who is slated to run the third lap of the race and back pain to anchor runner Dutee Chand forced Vinyakin to train with just two athletes — Merlin Joseph and HM Jyothi. Even if Dutee was fit, that wouldn’t have helped things as training would be incomplete without Srabani since she has to exchange batons with the second and fourth lap runners. According to sources, Srabani was more interested in qualifying in individual event (200m) and that’s why she left for Europe for competitions against the wishes of the coach and the federation officials.
“The coach had pleaded with her to stay back so that the relay team could be prepared. After the Beijing event where we had created the national record, all were excited and wanted to clock another good time so that we can move closer to the top 16 rank. Srabani, however, felt that she had more chances to qualify in individual events and was not interested in relays. Because we don’t have another spare runner of her calibre our training has been affected. The whole team has been let down by her and now, after faring bad in Europe, she has come to senses that making cut in individual event would be tough. So she is now ready to race in the relays but without any training together it would be tough to clock a much better time,” said one of the team members.
The team had clocked 44.03s in Beijing last month to erase the previous mark of 44.43s created by the formidable quartet of Saraswati Dey, Rachita Mistry, EB Shyla and PT Usha. If the team has to make it closer to qualifying, they need to clock 43.5s or less in the coming competition so that the average time can come to 43.7s. That would take them within a touching distance from Japan, who are ranked 17th now. Only top 16 can go to Rio.
With this idea in mind the relay team members were instructed to report in Patiala on June 10 so that they can leave for Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan for competitions after one week training. However, the plan fizzled out with Srabani’s absence. When contacted, Srabani dismissed the allegation that she is not interested in relays. “Nothing like that. I’ve just landed in Delhi. I am trying both 200m and relay,” she texted.