Age and drugs take India's athletics way off track in a year filled with controversy

Renjith Maheshwary’s doping controversy prevented him from receiving the Arjuna Award

Indian mythology and folklore the world over has given us our fair share of multi-headed monsters; creatures that often bring about chaos and destruction, only to be saved in the end by a great hero or heroine. In many a case, it involves chopping off each of the heads. But some of these mythic monsters were so well-equipped that at the fall of a head, another one would rear, just like new.

The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) have had quite a torrid time this year dealing with precisely such monsters, ones that have kept rearing their ugly heads over and over again. At a time of the year when the season is closed and there isn’t much to deal with for authorities, athletes and pretty much everyone else as they wind down for the season and prepare to usher in the new one, the AFI dished out some Christmas presents to a number of athletes and their respective state associations.

Boxing Day is earmarked as the occasion you get to uncover your presents, and boy, were the athletes in for a rude shock!

The AFI banned six states including Delhi and Haryana for fielding over-aged athletes. 14 other athletes also received suspensions, for duration of two whole years, after having been found guilty of doping.

These decisions were the two big talking points to emerge from the body’s two-day Executive Committee meeting on December 22nd and 23rd.

“In order to curb the overage and doping menace the Executive Committee of Athletics Federation of India, which met here on 22nd and 23rd, have decided to enforce stringent measures on both erring athletes and their respective state-units,” AFI said in a release.

The implication of this ruling is that the six states in question – Delhi, Haryana, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh – will not be able to take part in any competitions organized under the banner of the AFI in the coming season.

However, the athletes from these states can participate in the events, but they would do so under the AFI banner as independent athletes; that too, post an approval from the President/Secretary of the AFI.
The report claims that 44 athletes were found to be over the age limit in various competitions through the year. For the erring athletes, the punishment is even harsher, an exile of two years.

You do wonder if the punishment is fair, because as much as it is an athlete’s responsibility to ensure that he/she is not engaging in any activity that contravenes the established norms of fair play, the fact that the state federations were accomplices in it cannot be discounted.

You could argue that giving the state bodies a two-year ban will affect the careers of other athletes from the states involved as they would see their development stalled by a lack of funds and exposure resulting from the ban. But, isn’t that a strong message worth sending to ensure that they do not err again?

The other magic number is 14 – which is the number of athletes banned for doping. The lot that tested positive have also been given a two-year suspension from the sport. There is nothing to complain about here at all.

The damning verdict at the close of the year was bad enough, but what makes it even more worrying is the emergence of a trend in Indian athletics this year, one of repeated faux pas and goof-ups and doping instances.

It has been a tumultuous year so far filled with many embarrassing instances for the national athletics body as well as many fires that it had to go about extinguishing.

The National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA), in its dope tests through the year, found 23 track and field athletes to be guilty of doping; that number was among the highest from any discipline and earned athletics a place on the leader board in number of dope-tainted athletes.

There was also the huge fracas involving national record holding triple-jumper Renjith Maheshwary. The past caught up with Maheshwary as the jumper got caught up in a doping scandal from five years ago that snowballed into a huge controversy.

Maheshwary was accused of having failed a dope test at the 2008 Nationals in Kochi. The AFI for a long time refuted claims that he had been found guilty of doping, in order to save face, as they had recommended his name for the Arjuna Award for the third consecutive year, after doing so in 2011 and 2012 as well.

The Sports Ministry wanted a final clearance from the AFI before it went ahead and bestowed the award on Maheshwary. Finally the pressure came through, and the AFI admitted that Maheshwary had indeed committed a dope violation in Kochi, though they could not locate the files which would serve as evidence.

However, a letter from the AFI to the Railways, Maheshwary’s employers at the time, documenting his doping offence, proved to be the clincher in the end.

All this while, the Sports Ministry and Maheshwary himself, were in a state of suspended stasis as to the status of his Arjuna Award. Eventually, in a most embarrassing sequence of events, Maheshwary was intimated just hours before the awards function, that he was being hauled off the awardees’ list.

The issue of over-aged athletes too was not the first instance, and what’s more, it happened at an international event. At the Asian Youth Games in August in Nanjing, China, 17 young track and field athletes were sent back home from the games for being over the prescribed age limit.

For athletics, there was a different age criteria as compared to the other disciplines and this was overlooked, as the AFI sent athletes who were born before January 1, 1997, the date that was set for the athletics events.

This led to another administrative scuffle, this time between the AFI and the Sports Authority of India (SAI) which demanded compensation to the tune of Rs.10 lakh that it had spent to send the 17 athletes to China.

A moot point here is the oversight on the part of the organizers to provide some defence to the Indian authorities. As is the case with most international events, the name lists of the participants are sent across well in advance, and only after confirmation from the organizers are the participants sent. So how was it that the organizers failed to spot the discrepancy during verification? The Indian media likes a story and pounces on any given opportunity to beat up the sporting authorities, but there lies some share of the blame elsewhere too on this occasion.

Still, the fact that the AFI allowed such an oversight to happen under its watch is a major indictment of its operational efficiency.

Another instance where the ugly head of doping cropped up to cause more loss of face for the AFI was at the Asian Championships in Pune in July, when shot-putter Udaya Laxmi had to be forcibly withdrawn after she tested positive for a stimulant.

And if you thought that 2013 just happened to be an extremely unfortunate year for the AFI, if anything, it was a continuation of a deep-rooted malaise that has been in existence for a few years now.

The NADA furnished a report recently, in response to an RTI petition filed by a citizen, detailing instances of doping between January 2009 and July 2013. The figures were shocking.

In the above period, a total of 500 athletes were said to have tested positive for doping and 423 out of them had sanctions imposed on them by the Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel (ADDP). Topping the list, in terms of number of offenders, was athletics.

Athletics had 113 doping violations in that period with weightlifting in tow in second place with 92 violations. The other disciplines to feature in the top were Kabaddi, Bodybuilding, Powerlifting, Wrestling, Boxing and Judo, in that order.

In some further indictment, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) revealed through one of its reports in August that India had the second-highest number of dope cheats placed in suspension in athletics, with 43, one behind Russia who had 44.

Certainly not the lists which the AFI would have wanted to be topping!

To cause further consternation to an already worried community, the NADA revealed that doping as an acceptable practice was starting young, with school-going athletes found to be rampantly using syringe-based performance enhancing drugs at an inter-school meet in Kerala.

During another event at the Kanteerava Stadium in Bangalore, TOI reported to have again found a number of used syringes in both the boys and girls toilets. In fact, two of them, after having been caught red-handed by the Doping Control Officer (DCO) at the stadium, proceeded to run away from him. They were subsequently disqualified.

A similar expose was carried out by TOI at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium in Chennai in July-August.
Even internally, there wasn’t nothing for the AFI to write home about, as elections to its posts were held twice, after the first one was said to have violated the Sports Code put in place by the Sports Ministry. The President, treasurer and secretary elected through the first election were not recognized by the ministry and it threatened to de-recognize the AFI, similar to the IOC’s threat to India’s Olympic body.

After changes to the constitution, Adille Sumariwala, CK Valson and PK Srivastava were elected president, secretary and treasurer, respectively.

Going into 2014, a year in which the country will be participating in the Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games, the signs are bad with the national athletic body seemingly exhibiting an alarming level of operational inefficiency.

The recurring instances of doping violations and age and eligibility related faux pas have cast a dark shadow on the capability of the administrators to lead the nation’s athletic federation on the right track.

There are many issues to mend, notable amongst them being repairing the discord and acrimony that was create between the AFI and other agencies such as the Sports Ministry and the SAI. Maintaining good relationships with these bodies is a must, if at all the athletes’ interests are to be well taken care of.

It’s tough stand to stamp out doping and cheating by handing out lengthy bans and suspensions is also a welcome move, as much as the state associations may crib about it. After all, India needs athletes that are clean and meeting the required eligibility criteria to be representing it at the major events. Falling prey to last minute withdrawals due to one issue or another in front of the global sporting community is not something the country would want to see at this juncture.

The multi-headed monster is at the shores threatening to swallow up Indian athletics. The proverbial hero, a saviour is needed to rescue the situation and men and women donning the posts at the AFI have a major task at hand. Indian athletics not so much needs as demands a new dawn in 2014.

India's shining stars: The sportpersons who did India proud in 2013

As the year 2013 draws to a close, it is time to relive some of the best moments of the year 2013. India as such had some mixed results in the sporting arena – there were some major highs accompanied by some disappointing results along the way.

The highs came in both team sports as well as some of the individual events.

Here’s a summary of the men and women who shone the brightest through the year in no particular order.

Indian Cricket Team

The Indian team celebrates winning the Champions Trophy

The Men in Blue have had another successful season under the able stewardship of captain MS Dhoni with the highlight being the Champions Trophy triumph in England.

The team won each of the six Test matches that it played. You could argue that all of them were at home and hence the team was expected to win, but the best teams begin with staying strong at home. The team did that, and convincingly too, with series wins over the Aussies and the West Indies. The latter ended with the retirement of Sachin Tendulkar, but many new faces were unearthed, offering much promise into the future.

Cheteshwar Pujara had a tremendous year notching up two centuries that included a big double century providing solidity at the number three position, vacated by Rahul Dravid. Shikhar Dhawan announced his Test entry with a bang, through a stroke-filled century against the Aussies and Ravichandran Ashwin demonstrated the ability to be India’s lead bowler in home conditions and also added further credibility with the bat towards the end of the season.

The ODI side also performed admirably, winning 22 and losing 10 of their 34 matches in total, with 2 games providing no result. In fact, the team had a better win record abroad and on neutral territory this year, winning 7 of 10 games on the opposition’s home turf and winning all but one of their games on neutral grounds.

They won the Champions Trophy with a perfect record winning every game, including a remarkable fight back in the final against hosts England. Rohit Sharma finally came through on his promise, while Virat Kohli continued his rapid rise up the ODI batting echelons opening the batting and new talents such as Mohammad Shami emerged later in the season.

PV Sindhu

PV Sindhu returned with the bronze from the BWF World Championships

The badminton fraternity found a new face dominating the headlines this year in the form of teenager PV Sindhu who made the rather giant leap from the national scene to the international one winning two Grand Prix Gold titles and making history by winning bronze at the BWF World Championships. What was even more impressive was the fact that she took down former Olympic champion Wang Shixian and reigning World Champion Wang Yihan, both of China, en route to the semi-finals.

Another product of the Gopichand Academy in Hyderabad and tutored under the auspices of national coach Pullela Gopichand.

The lanky Hyderabadi, still just a teenager, caused a ripple when she won the Malaysian Open early on in the season. But, the shockwaves came when she made her way into the semi-finals of the BWF World Championship in Guangzhou, China, where she was assured of a bronze after falling to eventual champion Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand.

The achievement was a monumental one, as it was the first medal for India in women’s singles at the World Championships and it was also just India’s third medal overall after Prakash Padukone’s bronze in men’s singles at Copenhagen in 1983 and Ashwini Ponnappa and Jwala Gutta’s bronze in women’s doubles in the 2011 edition.

She ended the season too on a high with victory at the Macau Open, where she was the top seed and currently sits an impressive 11th in the world rankings after starting the year ranked 25th.

Heena Sidhu

Heena Sidhu

Heena Sidhu made history by becoming the first pistol shooter to win a gold medal at the ISSF World Cup Finals.

And it’s not like she had an easy run in the tournament; she overcame stiff odds by overcoming the challenge of double Olympic champion Guo Wenjun of China, world champion Zorana Arunovic of Serbia and multiple-Olympic medallist Olena Kostevych of Ukraine.

Two Indians had previously won gold medals at the World Cup – Anjali Bhagwat in 2002 and Gagan Narang in 2008 – but both of them had come in the rifle events, making this a first in pistol shooting.

After making a shaky start in the final, she went on to hit 15 consecutive bulls’ eyes to finish with a comfortable lead of 5.2 points over her nearest competitor.

Even more astonishing was the fact that she was not even supposed to be participating at the event, and only received a late call up after two other competitors withdrew at the last minute.

Talk about a dream win!

Women’s hockey teams

Indian girls hockey team return with bronze medal from Germany

The trend of winning a first ever medal in an event was common amongst India’s female athletes this year.

The junior hockey girls, achieved something on par with what Sindhu did when they finished the third-best team at their world cup and brought home a bronze medal, which was India’s first medal ever from the competition in Monchengladbach, Germany.

They beat England 3-2 on penalties in the decisive bronze medal playoff match.

The Indian girls proved to be a dangerous outfit right through the competition, surprising many of the top sides and making their way into the final four. They also went one better from the previous edition, where they had made their way to the bronze medal match, only to be pipped by South Korea.

Hockey India deservedly felicitated the achievement by granting a cash bonus of Rs. 1 lakh to each of the players and chief coach Neil Hawgood while the other members of the coaching staff received Rs. 50,000 each.

18-year-old Rani, who was not only the star of the Indian team, but of the whole tournament, vindicated by the Player-of-the-Tournament award bestowed upon her, was awarded a further lakh.

In general, the women outdid the men through the year.

The senior team, despite not picking up any gold, performed admirably in collecting the bronze at the Asia Cup and the silver in the Champions Trophy.

Leander Paes

Leander Paes (R) of India and Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic pose with their trophy after winning their men’s doubles final against Alexander Peya of Austria and Bruno Soares of Brazil at the 2013 US Open

The 40-year old veteran won the US Open mixed doubles title with his Czech partner Radek Stepanek. It was his 8th men’s doubles title in Grand Slams and 14th overall.

Paes and Stepanek clinched their second major title together with a dominant 6-1, 6-3 win over the Austrian-Brazilian pairing of Alexander Peya and Bruno Soares.

The Indian tennis star proved that age is merely a number, collecting his third doubles title at the US Open at the age of 40.

In the other two Slams that they played together, they were bumped out in the first round at the Australian Open and reached the semi-finals at Wimbledon where they went down to Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo in a five-set thriller.

They did not play together at the French Open due to Stepanek’s injury, with Paes partnering Austrian Jurgen Melzer instead.

Paes and Stepanek finished the year ranked at No. 7.

Men’s and women’s kabaddi teams

The Indian men’s kabaddi team

The men’s team won their 4th title in as many World Cups, maintaining their perfect streak with a win over Pakistan. The final this time around wasn’t as easy as in previous editions as the Pakistanis put up a game fight, but the 3-time defending champions edged them out in the end. The tournament has become something of a favourite stomping ground for the kabaddi team and it once again demonstrated that they were still the best in the sport, despite improvement from the other teams over the years.

The women too faced Pakistan, but in their semi-final, and after overcoming the neighbours proceeded to beat New Zealand in the final. This was the second instance of the women’s world cup and India made it a clean sweep of both the trophies by triumphing in this one as well.

Women’s Recurve Archery team

Indian women archers Rimil Buriuly (L), Deepika Kumari (C) and Bombayla Devi pose with their gold medals during a meeting with the V. K. Malhotra President of Archery Association of India in New Delhi on August 27, 2013.

Individually they may not have struck gold, but the famed women’s recurve team as a group performed really well to come out with two gold medals to their name.

India’s leading recurve archer Deepika Kumari, along with Laishram Bombayla Devi and Rimil Buriuly had a highly successful year together as a team.

The trio had bagged gold in the World Cup Stage 3 final in Medellin, Colombia after beating China in the title clash.

They then went on to cause a stunning upset of world and Olympic champions Korea in the World Cup Stage 4 final in Wroclaw, Poland in August.

Deepika Kumari also had a fine year overall individually as she ended the year with seven international medals to her name – three gold, three silver and one bronze.

Deepika’s third gold medal, after the twin team triumphs at the World Cup, came in the mixed team event at the 18th Asian Archery Championship in Chinese Taipei where she went on to win in the company of Jayanta Talukdar, the leading male recurve archer.

She picked up two silvers early in the year at World Cup Stage 1 final in Shanghai, China, in the mixed team event and in the individual category.

The third silver medal came at the prestigious World Cup Final in Paris where she had to settle for silver for a third year in succession as she was edged out by Korea’s Ok-Hee Hyun.

She finished the year ranked No.3 in the individual recurve rankings.

The lone bronze also came with Talukdar at the World Cup Stage 3 final in Medellin, Colombia, in the mixed team event.

Indian Compound Archery team

The men’s compound archery team that achieved gold at the Asian Championships

While the women’s recurve team put up consistent good shows, it was a breakout year for India’s compound archers who emerged from the shadows of their more famous compatriots.

The compound team took inspiration from the women recurve’s world-beating efforts as the trio of Abhishek Verma, Ratan Singh Khuraijam and Sandeep Kumar caused a major upset of their own when they beat the Koreans to take gold in the men’s team event at the Asian Archery Championships in Taipei.

It was the second gold for India in the men’s compound category at the event after an individual gold for IR Sanam at the 2009 edition in Bali.

The team grew from strength to strength through the year and came ever so close to winning a historic gold at the World Cup Stage 2 in Turkey, where the mixed team of Rajat Chauhan and Majudha Soy finished runners-up to the Italian team by a solitary point.

After qualifying third, the team of Chauhan and Soy went on a fairy tale run defeating all before them, that included the likes of fancied nations such as Great Britain, Canada and Russia, to make their first ever final.

Their performance was in fact the saving grace for India at the World Cup Stage 2 as the fancied recurve archers finished empty-handed after a disastrous showing.

At World Cup Stage 3 in Colombia, the men’s team won bronze and at the Asian Youth Championships in Wuxi, China, the team returned with one silver and four bronze medals.

Rajat Chauhan bagged that lone silver in the men’s individual event.

At the Asian Archery Championships, they had another successful run, collecting two gold, one silver and one bronze to further add to their tally. One of those golds, as mentioned earlier, came when the men’s team upset the Koreans. The second came in the mixed category as the team of Abhishek Verma and Lily Chanu beat the Iranians by one point in the title clash

Vijay Kumar Malhotra, President of the Archery Association of India, was unwavering in his praise for the compound archers.

“This year is entirely dedicated to compound archers in view of their brilliant performance in all international competitions attended during 2013 which is a good sign for the preparation of ensuing 2014 Asian Games, Incheon where Compound event has been included for the first time,” said Malhotra.

Indian Wrestlers

Amit Kumar (L) came home with the silver in the freestyle 55 kg category at the World Championships

At the 2013 Asian Wrestling Championships held in New Delhi, India finished with nine medals overall – two gold, one silver and six bronze.

However, that was good enough only for fifth place overall in the medal standings behind South Korea, Uzbekistan, Japan and China.

In the men’s freestyle though, India finished as the top nation with 48 points, three ahead of Iran who finished second with 45. India finished seventh in men’s Greco-Roman and fourth in women’s freestyle.

Two Amits, Amit Kumar and Amit Kumar Dhankar, won gold in the men’s freestyle 55 kg and  66 kg categories respectively while Bajrang Kumar took bronze in the 60 kg category and Hitender in the 120 kg category.

In women’s freestyle, Vinesh, Babita Kumari, Geetika Jakhar and Jyoti won bronze medals while Navjot Kaur took silver in the 67 kg category.

There was more good news to come for India in the World Championships held at Budapest, Hungary in September. For the first time, India won two medals in the men’s events at the World Championship.

Wrestler Bajrang bagged a bronze in the 60 kg freestyle category with a 9-2 win over Nyam-Ochir Enkhsaikhan of Mongolia which took him to the final. The second medal came from Amit Kumar Dahiya when he won silver in the 55 kg weight category.

The performance meant India scored 23 points at the tournament to finish sixth in the rankings behind Iran, Russia, Georgia, Ukraine and USA and in addition, their performance earned them a first ever berth in the World Cup to be held next year.

“I am very happy with my performance. I was gunning for the gold medal as I had practiced hard for the tournament but unfortunately couldn’t get it due to bad umpiring decision. The referee warned me for not attacking the Iranian and awarded him the point. I was a contender for gold. Nevertheless, I am happy with my performance and overwhelmed by the reception received here,” said Amit.

India’s Barjang Barjang celerates his bronze medal on the podium of the men’s free style 60 kg category of the World Wrestling Championships in Budapest

“I am happy to have made the whole country proud. I am happy with my performance. This is India’s best-ever finish in the World Championship,” said Bajrang

Not to be left behind, the Greco-Roman contingent also provided a medal as Sandeep Tulsi Yadav won bronze in the 60 kg category.

Amit received a cash award of Rs. 5 lakh from the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) while Sandeep and Bajrang each received Rs. 3 lakh.

And in the final major competition of the year, the freestyle men’s wrestlers returned with 14 medals at the Commonwealth Wrestling Championships in Johannesburg to successfully defend their title. They bagged seven gold, four silver and three bronze medals.

Sandeep Tomar (55kg), Jaideep (60kg) and Amit Kumar Dhankar (66kg), Praveen Rana (74kg), Pawan Kumar (84kg) Satyavart Kadian (96kg) and Joginder Kumar (120kg) clinched gold medals in their respective weight categories.

Silver was won by Narender (55kg), Ravinder Singh (60kg), Naresh (84kg) and Rohit Patel (120kg), and bronze went to Arun Kumar (66kg), Pardeep (74kg) and Hardeep (96kg).

The men’s Greco-Roman contingent also came back with a rich haul of seven gold, five silver and two bronze. The women’s team finished runner-up with two gold, four silver and five bronze.