E-Paper
India’s German athletics high-performance director quits
Hermann was appointed in June 2019 at a monthly salary of over $11,000, until the Olympics. His contract was extended in September with AFI recommending a five-year term to SAI.
India’s German athletics high performance director, Volker Herrmann, has resigned, saying in a social media post he was unable to meet his own expectations. Athletics Federation of India (AFI) president, Adille Sumariwalla, said it was due to personal reasons though it has come with the Tokyo Olympics barely eight months away.
Hermann was appointed in June 2019 at a monthly salary of over $11,000, until the Olympics. His contract was extended in September with AFI recommending a five-year term to the Sports Authority of India (SAI), which employs him.
Herrmann in a facebook post said he resigned three weeks ago after being convinced he could “no longer meet the self-imposed expectations of his role.”
At the time of Herrmann’s appointment, AFI said his job would be more about planning, strategising and studying the data of the elite athletes preparing for major international events.
The German made efforts to oversee the training of talented long jumper M Sreeshankar before the 2019 world championships, but the jumper was not happy with Herrmann’s training methods. He was then involved in training middle distance runner Jinson Johnson, the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games 1,500m champion. The Army runner though left on leave citing personal reasons with Herrmann shifting his focus to the women’s 100m group.
Sumariwalla, in a statement on Sunday, acknowledged Hermann’s contribution to the education of coaches. He said: “We tried to convince him to stay and work with the federation, but due to personal reasons he wants to go home.”
He said AFI wants to appoint two high-performance directors, for the seniors and juniors.
Herrmann is the second high-performance director to be appointed by AFI. US Olympian Derek Bossey, appointed in 2015 ahead of the Rio Olympics, quit after seven months.
