CHENNAI: The Olympics are here. Athletics produced the only gold at the Tokyo Olympics. All eyes will be on Neeraj Chopra again. Yet, according to the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) president Adille Sumariwalla, this time the team is expected to do better. During a freewheeling interview this daily, the AFI chief who will be completing his third and final four-year term this year, talks about the preparation, athletes who are likely to do well, future project on women's 4x400 relay, his legacy and more. Excerpts:
With the Paris Olympics around this will be a crucial year. You must have planned meticulously for all athletes who have qualified and are likely to qualify. Did the process start after the Tokyo Olympics or earlier?
It's a continuous process. If you look at the programme, at the last Olympics these athletes were young and new, like M Sreeshankar and others... this Olympics, they will be matured. Jeswin Aldrin and others will be far more experienced than they were before. If they do their best of 8.40m they are definitely in the running for a medal. Look at the javelin throw. We have five javelin throwers capable of throwing 85m plus. It is not like we are training from one Olympic cycle to the other. It’s a long term vision and we keep adding to it.
You have mentioned javelin throw... And of course Olympic and world champion Neeraj Chopra is a role model. Right now we have three javelin throwers in top 12 in the World Athletics ranking. How do you see this?
Today it will be difficult to select a team for the Olympics. It is not just these three (Kishore Jena and DP Manu), there are two more. There is Rohit (Yadav), there is Shivpal (Singh) who is also in the race. So there are five javelin throwers, only three of them will be able to go to the Games. If you see the last Worlds, the top six had three Indians. I think it's a tremendous effort. Again I am coming back to what I said (about our training programme), it has to be a continuous process. You cannot produce this from one Olympic cycle from Tokyo to here.
We have been strong in field events. But when it comes to the World Championship or the Olympics, do you think we have to achieve our target or not jump to our potential?
If you see the last Worlds, if they had jumped their best — 8.40m plus — they would have got a medal. The issue is it requires a little more experience by which you know these athletes will be able to perform the same at the top level. So we are sending them for exposure and training. Sree and the others are going to participate in some Diamond League meets before the Olympics. We are sending all of them to ensure that they are continuously jumping with the best jumpers in the world. So that they are used to it and this would seem like a normal jumping session.
When we were running. When we went to the Olympics, it was like somebody from a village in central India had come to Bombay and was seeing all the buildings when they've never seen a hut, not even seen a first floor. We used to run on grass and mud and then we had to run on synthetic. That was a different running.
Now we are ensuring that the athletes get good competitions and that they are used to all sorts of conditions... hot, cold so that nobody says bahut garmi hai (it's so hot). There are no excuses. With all the experience that we are giving them, nobody can have any excuse. We are giving you enough competitions to participate in throughout the year, throughout the season. Go and make the best of it and then reproduce your best in the big championships.
On expanding on giving athletes the best experience, exposure and training facilities under his regime
It's very simple. Sport is science. Sport is biomechanics and biochemistry. What we did is we first identified the events, once we identified the events, then what did we do? We brought in foreign coaches and once we brought in the foreign coaches... you look at the improvement in middle and long distance running of late. We brought in Scott Simmons about two years ago. Now see the difference in the middle and long distance running. They're breaking national records after national records. There were one or two athletes those days. But look at the athletes, where they are, I mean, they're running with the best. Look at the walkers, we brought in a foreign coach. Seven have qualified for the Olympics. Nobody actually gives walking too much importance. It is unheard of that seven walkers from India have qualified. Come to the 4x400m relay. Again foreign coaches. Three foreign coaches, one after another, look at the three, three years roughly, each. Today, running two races below three minutes in a space of 24 hours without changing the team. We hardly have any runners running below 45.5 and yet we are running below three minutes. Again we have a foreign coach. Now we are doing a programme for the 400m women. And I can tell you that in 2028, we will be fighting for a medal in all the three relays — men, women and mixed.
On the special project for the women's 400m
There will be three separate centres in which 16 athletes will be housed in each of those centres under three foreign coaches. This will be only for women. For men, we are doing whatever we are doing and the existing programme will continue.
The three centres...?
I think it should be Trivandrum, Bangalore and maybe Bhopal or Pune. We are finalising the plan so I am not sure about the centres right now. In women's, we have no 51-52 second runners. Yet in the national relay in Chandigarh this year we had 3:28s which is the third fastest timing ever by a relay team in India. And we have all 52.5-53 second runners. When these athletes, who are young, are trained you see what will happen.
On whether it will be age-based selection
No. We will identify them mostly from our junior -- under 18, under 20 category and the senior women. We will also consider some under-16 athletes, because we don't want to over-train the U-16 athletes.
On potential medals in other disciplines at big events
We said the relays and jumps. We have said that within two Olympic cycles, we will be back in women's discuss throw. There are the three relays, there are walks, one or two middle and long distance events. Steeplechase is a good event but we have a long way to go.
On the legacy you will likely leave behind and your anti doping programme...
I think I have done a tremendous amount of work there (anti-doping). Before I became president, we used to hardly test 100 samples but now we are testing 1000s. Now we have taken anti-doping to state level. We have taken it to institution level like All India Police, Services and Railways. We have anti-doping to junior level.
In terms of legacy, I think I have done some great work. Identifying athletes and disciplines… bringing in foreign coaches. If you see in my first term of the Olympics (London), about 12 (13) people qualified. By the second term (Rio Games), roughly 18-20 athletes qualified and the third time, roughly 30 (26), odd have qualified and this time close to 40 are expected to qualify. Basically, you have to build bench strength. It's like if you have five throwers, five jumpers, then you will get one world champion.
So you're building bench strength, you're bringing in transparency, accountability, making everybody accountable, including the coaches, the foreign coaches, the Indian coaches, the monitoring systems that have been put in place. The processes have been put in place. That's the biggest legacy. Whether I am there or not, the system has to continue. Be sustainable.
As a federation, I mean, you are generating revenue. I put the finances in very good shape. We have also finally got our own office building in New Delhi.
On the athletes...
I think you look at the whole system. Today the athletes have full faith that no wrong will be done to them. There is somewhere where they can go if they have a problem or an issue. There is somebody who's going to listen to them. They get whatever facility they want from us. It's the athletes, the coaches, everybody. We have a very open process. Our AGM is open even to the media. Which federation in India has an AGM where the media is allowed? That's the level of transparency.
On AFI as a federation
There are no issues because if everybody is working for the same cause and working honestly, then there will be no problem. When people want something then there is a problem. If you work well, you will be rewarded. If you don't work well, you'll be thrown out. As simple as that. The structure we have created at the district level is again one of the biggest legacies and is one of the largest congregations of junior athletes in the world. The National Inter-District Junior Athletics Meet (NIDJAM) that we have created will remain at the top.
If you have to name some top four or five athletes who have taken the sport forward or inspired others?
The javelin throws with Neeraj at top of it. The 4x400 relays. Both the relays, men and women, the long jumpers headed by Sree. The middle and long distance runners are headed by Avinash Sable.
Was it some kind of a natural progression or AFI helped in the progression?
It all started in the NIDJAM programme. Right from the grassroots. You look at 400m runners, most of them came from the NIDJAM and the junior nationals.
How are you looking forward to the Olympics?
We hope to do better. I'm not worried about medals. All I am saying is we will do better in every way. Whether in terms of number of athletes in the final or the number of athletes who may get a medal or performance-wise... a number of national records and personal best.