Nirmala Sheoran fails to report for camp, untraceable again

The athlete, who has a personal best of 51.25 seconds in the 400 metres, has a tendency to appear out of the blue for trials and qualify for major events and then slip under the radar. However, this time she could be skating on thin ice as the AFI is losing patience with athletes who stay away from national camps. “Athletes who don’t report to national camps will find it next to impossible to get selected to the Indian squad in team events like relays or individual events,” AFI president Adille Sumariwalla said on Thursday.

Before travelling to the Asian Games, Nirmala had attributed her absence from the camp to ‘personal’ and ‘family problems’.

“I did not do anything suspicious. Because of personal and family problems, I went into depression after World Championships. There were illness in my family and other personal problems. I wanted to compete at the Commonwealth Games but then I suffered from typhoid,” she had said in June.

But such ‘excuses’ are unlikely to be entertained because she has not informed the AFI about reasons for not reporting for the national camp conducted by coach Galina Bukharina.

Deputy chief national coach Radhakrishna Pillai confirmed that all the other athletes besides Nirmala have reported for the camp. “This is not the first time she has failed to report for the camp. It happened before the Commonwealth Games earlier this year. The AFI has tried to contact her but she is untraceable. If she does not report by the end of November then it is unlikely she will be allowed to be part of the national camp,” Pillai said.

Three officials of the AFI travelled to Bhiwani earlier this month to convince her family to send Nirmala to the camp. Though the officials were given assurance that she would report at the National Institute of Sport in Patiala shortly, she never showed up.

The AFI has a policy of only including those athletes who are part of the national camp in relay teams and is looking to expand it to individual events also. In April this year, The Indian Express had tried to find Nirmala’s whereabouts and travelled to her home in Chehad Khurd village in Bhiwani. Her father claimed that Nirmala trained with her personal coach at the Rohtak stadium and lived in a rented accommodation near the venue. But at the Rohtak stadium, Nirmala was nowhere to be seen. In fact, local coaches claimed that she had not visited the stadium in almost two months.

In June, reports emerged that Nirmala was training in Ratangarh in Churu, Rajasthan along with her coach Vijender before she shifted base to Bhiwani with the National Inter-state meet around the corner.

Haryana State Athletics Association secretary Raj Kumar Mittan said on Wednesday that Nirmala’s whereabouts were not known currently and her coach’s number was not reachable. At the Jakarta Asian Games, Nirmala finished fourth with a timing of 52.96 seconds, while rising star, 18-year-old Hima Das won a silver (50.79S).