SAI suicide pact: A bright future beckoned athletes

In what was a tragic turn of events — barely three weeks after the two rowers Aparna and Shilpa had returned from a national camp (selected for the camp after medalling consistently in junior and sub-junior meets) — the teenaged Aparna Ramabhadra (16) would consume the lethal fruit ‘othalanga’ and succumb to the poisoning around 3.30 am on Thursday.

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A bronze medallist at the 2014 junior national championships in coxless pairs, Aparna had attended her first senior national camp at Hyderabad, where coaches had told her that if she continued to train well, she would eventually make the senior national team and represent the country internationally in the future.

Though Aparna went out in the first selection trials and returned to Alappuzha to resume training at her home SAI centre, Shilpa would make the next notch in Hyderabad, exiting the second trial though impressing Indian coaches with an eye on the future.

National coach Ismail Baig recalls them as promising rowers, adding, “They had good potential, and have won national medals in junior and sub-junior category. But they weren’t upto the mark yet when it came to the senior national team for the upcoming Asian Championships because they were still teenagers. So we told them to continue training and since they were very young, they went back to their SAI centre. They’d joined late because of exams, and must’ve been here for eight weeks. This was their first national camp. Shilpa, silver medallist at 2014 junior national championships in doubles scull, especially is very talented.”

The 16-year-old Shilpa left Hyderabad around April 16 knowing that a future of international competition in rowing beckoned should she keep up the good performance.

“We all live at the national camp here in Hyderabad like a family. When they were here I saw nothing amiss. But something must’ve happened when they returned which led them to this step. I am very shocked, and it’s tragic,” Baig added.

There are three feeder centres for women’s rowing — the one in Kerala, and two more in Jagatpur (Orissa) and the Andamans.

“Kerala’s always contributed the most rowers to women’s teams, and this centre is a constant feeder,” Baig informed of the state’s athletes, who had shone on the stretch of water from Shanmukhom Jetty to Aspinwall at the National Games earlier this year, adding that though they’d missed out this time, they held immense potential and he was distraught when he heard of Aparna’s death.

Treesa Jacob, who had been at the SAI centre for the last three and a half years along with Sabitha, had consistently won gold medals at junior nationals.

Sabitha, also 16, had picked silver in 500m women’s K-4 canoe sprint championships and together with Treesa, the gold at the National Sprint Canoe Championships.

“Treesa had a good build for the sport at 172 centimetres, and was the junior national champ, also fifth at junior women canoe sprint championships,” a coach with the canoe teams said.

“At the Bhopal junior nationals last month, these two had again done well. While Treesa was headed for bigger honours and even Sabitha, despite her modest build, had been doing well, both were assured of service in the government once they reached an age of employment. We can safely say that they’d have done well at the Asian level in the coming years. But they didn’t talk to anyone older at the camp about what torment they were going through and took this extreme step. Now all we can do is pray that the three girls recover. We’re very worried,” the coach added.

SAI DG: There is a gap in mental conditioning for trainees 

New Delhi: The Sports Authority of India has 10,000 trainees at 250 centres across the country but there is a lacuna when it comes to mental conditioning of sports persons at the grassroots level, admitted its director general (DG) Injeti Srinivas.

“When it comes to our elite athletes we have sports psychologists to support them but when it comes to the grassroots level or at training centres (like the one in Alappuzha) we do not have a psychologist or a sports psychologist who can provide support. However, the role of the warden is precisely to look into such issues,” Srinivas said on Thursday. The SAI DG also said he would now look to fill up the gaps when it comes to grievance redressal for SAI trainees.

“We also now have the task of identifying any deficiency in our system, which enables such an extreme thing to happen and also when it comes to dealing with trainees and situations where there seems to be some kind of tension,” Srinivas said.