CHENNAI: Days before the Commonwealth Games began, there were expectations on India but not as much as the medals tally reflected on Sunday. Among all the bright spots in Glasgow one that glowed most was athletics. It was poetic that Gulveer Singh rounded off India’s campaign with a bronze - his second at the event. No Indian has ever done it before.
This reflected India’s performance at this Games. Adille Sumariwalla, the Athletics Federation of India spokesperson, was excited because of India’s chances at the next Games. Speaking to this daily while on his way back and transiting in London, Sumariwalla said India have performed exceptionally well. “This has been the best performance outside India,” the former AFI president said. “From three medals in Glasgow to three in Gold Coast, eight in Birmingham to 10 in Glasgow. There has been an upward trend.”
However, Sumariwalla said that this was not exactly their target. It was more like a stepping stone towards the Asian Games next month. “This event we were not really using as the final event because our final focus is Asian Games,” he said. “We are looking to do well at the Asian Games. Again, if you look at events, we have got like two medals in certain events, which show the bench strength that we have. Look at javelin, triple jump, 5000-10000m or long jump. If you look at all those events, it really shows that you have enough bench strength. If TJ's (Tejaswin Shankar) knee had not gone bad, we might have had two medals in high jump also.”
Sumariwalla said that it’s not India are doing well only in the field events but also on track. It’s a process and it will yield results. He felt that the results are part of the process. “You keep getting these ups and downs. Sometimes track events do better and sometimes field. Like last time, we had two medals in walk. Now, we got two in 5000-10,000m. We had a medal in steeplechase, and this time a medal in decathlon. These things will keep happening.”
Next Commonwealth Games is in India and Sumariwalla said India will definitely get better by that time. “Our programme is ongoing. There is no starting now or ending now. We don't work from one championship to another. We have a continuous programme. The things that we have done by decentralization etc. have worked. We have got nothing to do with now or later. When NIDJAM started, we kept making it bigger and bigger. We kept including more and more athletes. We kept getting more and more foreign coaches,” he said.
He did not want to single out one performance but said that all of them competed well. Tejaswin competed despite having an injured knee and won a decathlon medal. Gulveer’s was historic medals, M Sreeshankar’s, Praveen Chithravel, etc. “Neeraj Chopra has made an exceptional comeback and will do better as he improves his fitness,” he said. “I think exciting times are ahead of us. I am also extremely pleased to see Neeraj make a comeback with 86m (85.83m) in those windy conditions. I think it was a very good comeback from his injury,” he added.