Indian think-tank unaware that Athens championship required maximum team scoring

In a scathing report titled The Great Indian Debacle, Sqdn Leader (retd) BR Gulati, vice-president of Indian Weightlifting Federation (IWF) highlights the causes for this downfall. Gulati was in Athens as a technical controller, the first Indian to perform that role at a World Championship. He wrote the report in his personal capacity. Copies were sent to Indian Olympic Association (IOA), IWF and Sports Authority of India (SAI).

Gulati states: “Shockingly, the Indian coaches were not even aware that this pre-Olympic qualifying event required maximum team scoring from the full Indian contingent to gain team berths for Sydney. Individual medals were of no importance.”

Yet, Gulati says, Sanamacha Devi and N Lakshmi contributed two “needless and suicidal” washouts (no lifts). “Two wash-outs in an Olympic qualifying Championship, where individual medals were of trivial consequence, should make some heads roll. Surely, the coaches could not have been oblivious to this simple strategy while planning lift attempts of Lakshmi after the horrible washout of Sanamacha.”

Instead, the coaches asked Lakshmi to attempt 125 kgs in all her three clean and jerk lifts, where “even one successful attempt of 120 kgs could give us 12th position, and three entries to Sydney.”

Gulati laments, “In this unexplainable act of foolishness, we lost everything when we had nothing to gain in the gamble.”

Gulati has rapped the “outdated” body weight control strategy followed by India’s foreign coach (Belarussian Taranenko), arguing that it was in utter disregard to bone structure tissue, fat reserves and eating habits of lifters from tropical countries. Gulati says the coach’s practice — lifters staying overweight by 5-6 kgs in the run-up to the competition, and a crash body weight reduction of 8-10 per cent during the last 72 hours — was suicidal, as it was more suited to the body structure of Western meat-eaters.

“For a typical Indian athlete, this can only mean an unacceptable fluid loss causing serious dehydration and wobbling knee joints besides other adverse effects on muscle reflexes,” writes Gulati.

Why, then was it a shock to our coaches when (Karnam) Malleswari complained of unsteady knees even with 120 kgs attempt against her earlier competition performance of 130 and practice sessions with 135-137.5, he asks. Why had Lakshmi the weak knees and powerless shoulders at 105 Snatch and even at the starting Clean and Jerk of 125, against her performance figures of 110/135?

“Are these coaches above the professional advice and intervention of sports medicine authorities and specialists permanently stationed at designated sports centres?” Gulati queries. He recollects his plea for urgent remedial measures on this in the aftermath of the September 1999 Asian Championships in China which the IOA, SAI and IWF ignored.

Gulati proceeds to ask if there was any need to send three coaches and a foreign sports medicine specialist for just eight lifters. “Ours was the only country having gender-based consideration for coaches. Columbia, Nigeria, Cameroon had lady coaches for both teams. China, fielding 12, Greece 13, Poland 12, Japan 12, Taipei 15 — all had just two coaches, one acting as back-up administrator.”

He also questions the pampering of past medal winners at the cost of new prospects. This, he says, ensured Athens berths for Malleswari, Krishna Kumari and Lakshmi despite their flagrant violation and abuse of training camp rules. “Lakshmi’s husband would not permit her to participate in the centralised training camp at Patiala. So she was allowed to practice at SAI Complex, Calcutta, entirely on her own. All this when we have an Indian coach at Rs 25,000 a month plus sizeable perks, a foreign coach at ten times that amount and a foreign sports medicine specialist at Patiala. Lakshmi’s one successful attempt in Snatch and washout in Clean and Jerk says it all. Worse, all these attempts were at 90 per cent of her potential two years earlier. There was such an elementary flaw in her jerk, that a positive correction and counselling was all that was needed of the coaches.”

Gulati adds that the training focus of the IOA and the coaches is knee-jerk and unplanned. There have been no attempt to groom juniors, as the IWF, the IOA and SAI all seem to have their agendas, he says.

Gulati says, “There must have been something good about our infrastructure and past coaching for India to have done well till now. We have a wealth of experience and dedicated coaches, but the right people need to be in charge.”

He asks, “Are we waiting for public disappointment to turn into a desperate outcry demanding inquiry and heads to roll for such apathy and little consideration to Nation’s honour in the sports arena?”

He concludes by saying: “Looking ahead, we can start in earnest:

— Form a second string of probables for intensive training and a full-fledged junior team.
— Make the selection process more professional and broad-based. A compact team is accused of centralised power with allegations of autocratic functioning and undue bias.
— Appoint one selection committee member as observer prior to a particular championship. He should have the stature, experience, time to visit periodically the training centre, interact with lifters, liase with sports authorities and submit progress reports to SAI, IWF, IOA and sponsors.

“Only a surgical operation like this can redeem our National honour.”

The IWF has been under a cloud of late, having been threatened with derecognition by Govt of India. It took grants of over Rs 5.7 lakh from a private sponsor (Hindujas) and the government for the same event, and the latter wants the money back, with interest.

There is also talk of vertical and horizontal splits in the body, and a new bye-law, stating annual elections will be held at Howrah and not during the Nationals as was previously the practice, has not washed well with a section.

The debacle at Athens, and the poor fashion in which this year’s Nationals were conducted at Kalyan, are shocking, considering that the discipline has for long been a medal sport.