CHENNAI: The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) has ushered in changes after Adille Sumariwalla finished three four-year terms as president. Even the secretary’s post will see a new official. Former Asian Games gold medalist, Bahadur Singh Sagoo, has been appointed as the new president while the secretary’s post will go to Sandeep Mehta, who was the senior joint-secretary earlier.
This was announced after the customary elections were held at the Annual General Meeting in Chandigarh on Tuesday. Like in previous years, there were no contests as most of the candidates were sole representatives in each post. Sumariwalla announced the names during a press briefing also aired online.
He said that he would continue as the spokesperson of the AFI. “I am here to assist Bahadur. I will be dealing with the World Athletics, International Federations, International Olympic Committee, the Indian Olympic Association, I will continue to assist him in those areas,” he said. Bahadur Singh won Asiad gold in 2002 and had participated at the Olympics in 2000 and 2004. The 51-year-old is working with the Punjab Police.
Zelezny to join Neeraj in Feb
During the press briefing Adille also said that Jan Zelezny, the newly-appointed coach of Neeraj Chopra is yet to join him at Potchefstroom.
“There are different parts of coaching. Strength conditioning, technique and biomechanics are part of that. One coach doesn’t look into everything,” he said adding that there is no coach attached to one athlete throughout the year. “Zelezny will come when he needs to come and that is the way the world is. Neeraj has now reached that stage in his life where he needs to take assistance from different segments — strength training, conditioning, biomechanics, running and throwing.”
It is understood that Zelezny is joining Neeraj next month after he returns from India where he is expected to take a two-week break.
Speaking on the National Games to be held in Uttarakhand, Sumariwalla said that he was not sure how many top athletes would be participating. “The list has come but I am not sure how many would be participating,” he said. “This is a very important year for us.
We have the world indoor championships, world relay, Asian and the world championships. The calendar has been made to ensure that we peak at the world championships. Whatever it takes we will do. That is consulting the foreign coaches, local coach and the chief coach. I can tell you what will happen off-hand. But we will do what is best for the country and athletes.”
As for Paris’ not-so-impressive performances apart from Neeraj’s silver, Sumariwalla said the federation had a three-day meeting to analyse where things need to improve. “We brought in everybody from the people who went with the team, people who participated to coaches to other stakeholders including foreign experts for a detailed analysis and we started taking action. We have rejigged the 400m runners and the coaches.
The ladies coach is not being retained and we are bringing in a Jamaican coach. We have put a brand new monitoring system that will take care of the lacunae we had before Paris. There were some lacunae and we did not perform as we were expected to do so in Paris.”
As for the AFI and its future, the old officials will continue to assist the new.