Visas done, tickets done, but Tintu Luka didn’t go: AFI president

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For the past couple of days, Tintu’s coach PT Usha had been complaining over her trainee’s lack of exposure overseas. On Friday, Sumariwalla set the record straight on the sidelines of the 55th National Open Athletics Championships being held at Salt Lake SAI.

“We sent Tintu Luka’s entry to four international meets in the space of six months. Did she go? Visas done, tickets done, but she didn’t go. She hasn’t spoken to me. She might be talking about the future, not the past,” Sumariwalla said.

He was replying to Usha’s demand seeking “eight to ten” international tournaments for Tintu ahead of Rio Olympics.

Sumariwalla also took little note of shot putter Inderjeet Singh’s threat of quitting the Target Olympic Podium (TOP) scheme. Singh has had been lamenting over the government’s “apathy”, claiming that he’s not getting the financial assistance to train abroad.

“Inderjeet participated in seven-eight international tournaments over the past 12 months. In any case, I’m not really enamoured with TOPS. It’s neither here nor there. I’m very happy with SAI… The money they’re giving me. TOPS is trying to make it into a fancy name and very commercial. I’m not a great fan of TOPS.”
The AFI president, who has been elected as a council member of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), moved on to doping, saying coaches who have been influencing young athletes to transgress, should be jailed.

“I want more people to get caught in dope tests. Before I came, we used to do 100 tests per year. Now we’ve 1000 tests per year. More people will get caught. I’m sending NADA to every inter-Services, inter-district and inter-Railways meet. We are trying to kill it at different levels. I’m now saying it’s mandatory for state meets to inform NADA. I’m trying to go to the lowest level. I’m very happy people are getting caught because other people will learn a lesson.

“People who are hiding from Patiala and training are getting caught. Youth and juniors are getting caught. It’s the coaches who are giving them. We need to kill the root cause. I’ve suggested to secretary sports, Government of India, that you must bring these coaches under the Juvenile Act and under Giving Forbidden Substances to Minors Act and jail them. You jail two coaches and everything will stop. My job is to solve the problem. For that if I look bad, so be it.”

And talking about Belarusian middle and long distance coach Nikolai Snesarev, who has reportedly sent his resignation to the AFI, citing poor infrastructure, Sumariwalla claimed the coach has only mentioned “poor facility” in his letter “He has only written that he isn’t happy with the facility. He hasn’t given any specific point of the facility.

Is there an issue with infrastructure? Yes. We don’t have a high-altitude training centre for long-distance running. We’ve been asking for a while. Right now we are using the Army facility in Ooty, which isn’t ideal. We’ve been asking for some facilities. So he has every right to be upset about it. We will talk to him about it. We’ve a meeting with the director general on September 20. We will discuss the matter and then we will see what is what.”

Sumariwalla also didn’t appear to be a great fan of a franchise-based league in athletics. “We’ve looked at a few people wanting to do a league. What they want to do doesn’t fit my training programme. The window is narrow. We already have commitments. We are working on it. I’m not going to have a league where my athletes will suffer. Their World Championships, Olympics shouldn’t suffer. There are lots of technical and practical problems.”

Meet records

Meanwhile, Anu Rani of the Railways set a new meet record in women’s javelin (600 gms) at the Open Nationals, hurling it to 58.85m and surpassing her previous best of 54.35m. It was her fourth gold medal in a row. Mayookha Johny bettered her previous best in women’s triple jump with 13.78m. Durgesh Kumar of Services made a hat-trick of gold medals, clocking 50.40 seconds in men’s 400m hurdles.