Asian Games 2018: ‘Unwell’ rower and clueless coach mean Indian challenge sinks without trace

“My sore throat from two days ago turned into a fever and I wasn’t feeling well at all. I just couldn’t row after 1200m, my body gave up. I wanted stronger injections because the anti-biotics they gave me didn’t kick in quickly. But there’s a no-needle policy, so I couldn’t do much and didn’t feel upto it,” he would say, hoping to make amends as part of the Quadruples on Friday.

The day had started badly. Forgetting to lock his oar gate, Dattu had capsized before heading out to the starting line, though this would have no bearing — save psychological — on the race. Staying behind the Chinese sculler, Dattu would fall back in time after the 500m and finally drop off both medal contention and eventually bring up the rear of the race.

India’s Romanian coach Nicolae Gioga, strangely, was not aware of Dattu’s medical condition. “I didn’t see that he had a problem. Training mentality was a problem. Competition mentality was a problem,” he would say.

India’s highly respected foreign coach, who has trained several Olympians, though was left scratching his head as India went without a single medal on Day 1 for the first time in four editions of the Asian Games. The Doubles pair of Swarn Singh and Omprakash led for the longest in their race, dropped to second, but also sunk further to 4th and out of the medal bracket. The Lightweight pair came even closer – missing out on a bronze in the final few seconds.

Gioga who had planned for 7 gold medals, was left wondering where even 3, or any, could come from. India race the 8s and 4s on Friday.

What will come to haunt Indians — who’ve always returned with a good haul — is that the coach’s program seems to be totally at odds with results from the past. In trying to go leaps ahead with Olympic-level foreign training, the rowers have ended up taking two steps back, losing grund at the continental Games.

For Indian coach Ismail Baig, who has shepherded rowers to three straight decent pickings from Asiad, it was a day of firsts. He watched a top rower capsize from a nervous mistake of forgetting to seal his boat for the first time. He watched the same rower utterly give up at the 1200-mark also the very first time. And a return of zero medals on Day 1, meant some introspection would be on.

While Dattu maintained he had been weakened by the illness and Swarn had been coming off a bad back, Gioga explained that the Indian rowers were posing him an unprecedented challenge as coach. “If we find strong competitors, then training will matters,” he would say, adding that while Dattu’s breakdown was inexplicable.

While the rest of the team was aware about Dattu having headed to the medical centre and asking for a stronger medicine, the coach’s ignorance of the rower’s condition was intriguing.

The coach said that he’d often found Dattu resistant to heavy loads of training. “Diarhea, pain here, there, everywhere,” he would cluck. “Dattu would stop training for different reasons. Same for Dushyant. From 30 total practice races he has done only 15,” he added.

He would rue the excuses. “We are looking for reasons to find for when we are not winning,” the straight-talking coach would say though adding that the capsize early on didn’t really matter. “Today I was looking for 1 gold. Tomorrow 2. Now I wonder where 2 gold can come from,” he added.

The coach believes confidence comes from training but his six-hour training routines haven’t yielded results yet. Gioga is known to stick to training on water and isn’t particularly crazy about the ergometer or bolstering gym-work. The coach reckons challenges of the water and winds must be negotiated by training on water.

Funnily, rowers and all the Indian coaches have bought into his new training methods full-time, saying that it could help improve timings, except they’ve not managed to shoulder the high work-loads. So, without either side complaining or rancour, there still seems to be no common path. “I couldn’t push them because they broke down. The fact is that these Indian muscles aren’t supporting my training,” the former China and Iran coach would admit.

He slumped his shoulders even, adding, “The wolf can change their hair not their behavior. I wonder what I could have done. When medal is missing, why continue. I didn’t have this problem in China and Iran.”

Gioga, besides doing away with a bulk of gym-work, also didn’t seem to have factored in just how crucial strength fortification was for Indian rowers to last the rigours. Common speed-work which happens in the last two months before a big meet, also was done away with.

It didn’t help India that China had changed strategy and fielded rowers in single sculls – their anthem playing on loop as they swept most races. The headwinds and crosswinds at the Palembang course at around the 750-1000 metres mark also bothered Indian rowers.

While Dattu will prep for the team race, Gioga was left a disappointed man. “I told him, you have never shown your capacity. Now is the time,” he’d say. Two contrasting training philosophies mean Indian rowers and their well-meaninged coach are stuck in an impasse.