Performances of Indian athletes in buildup to Rio Olympics under scanner
All three athletes set personal bests to achieve the Olympics qualification mark, but weren’t able to repeat the same at the Rio Games.
The performances of India’s top three athletes--sprinter Srabani Nanda, long jumper Ankit Sharma and triple jumper Renjith Maheshwary -- in the buildup weeks to the Rio Olympics are under the scanner with the International Association of Athletics Federations’ (IAAF) plans to review them.
All three athletes set personal bests to achieve the Olympics qualification mark, but weren’t able to repeat the same at the Rio Games.
On June 26 at the Almaty international meet, long jumper Ankit Sharma sailed to a distance of 8.19m, a personal best as well as a national record. It was better than the Rio qualifying mark of 8.15m. At the same venue, sprinter Srabani Nanda also clocked 23.03 seconds in the 200m. Triple jumper Renjith Maheshwary also set a national record of 17.30m on July in Bengaluru on the last date for achieving Olympics qualification. The Indian grand prix was unscheduled.
These performances raised doubts as to whether the mark set by athletes to achieve Olympics qualification was genuine?
Among those who have raised doubts are seasoned statisticians Mirko Jalava from Finland and Heinrich Hubbeling, a German statistician who brings out the annual Asian athletics rankings. Data compiled by Jalava has listed as many as 39 results prior to Rio that led to Olympic qualification under the doubtful/suspicious category.
In the list are three Indian results, namely those of Ankit Sharma, Srabani Nanda and Renjith Maheshwary. The statisticians have noted that there have been fluctuations in their performances leading to doubts. Outstanding performances were achieved in the Olympics qualifying events both on Indian soil and abroad but weren’t repeated during the Rio Olympics.
Within a span of four months, there was a huge fluctuation in Ankit Sharma’s performance. The jumper from Madhya Pradesh did 7.92m in May at Patiala, while there was sudden rise in his performance in June and he achieved the 8.19m mark. Again he slipped to 7.67m in Rio on August 12. The athlete though said he wasn’t able to cope with weather conditions besides the pressure of Olympics to repeat his personal best of 8.19m. Statisticians have reason to doubt this as there was a sudden rise in his performance in June, and he didn’t jump beyond 7.92m all season before Almaty.
Huge variation in performance
Similar is the case with triple jumper Maheshwary. After a string of poor performance, Maheshwary recorded 16.56m on June 29 during the Inter-State athletics meet at Hyderabad, but then recorded 17.30m, a season best on July 11 at Bengaluru. His best at Rio was 16.13m. Athletics Federation of India (AFI) secretary general CK Valson said he had personally measured Maheshwary’s performance of 17.30m. So he didn’t raise doubts about the mark. He however, was clueless as to why Maheshwary failed to repeat his performance at Rio.
There was huge variation in performance of sprinter Srabani Nanda. She clocked 23.07 seconds at Almaty on June 26. Three months before that at the season opening meet in New Delhi her best was 23.36 seconds. Her Rio performance was 23.58 seconds. Compiling the data, it raised doubts about her qualification mark of 23.07 seconds.
There have also been doubts about sprinter Dutee Chand’s 100m time of 11.24 secs clocked at Almaty. Experts believe it could be due to a faulty timing system.
The AFI is yet to rectify the national record set in the 2016 season. Tony Daniel, head of the federation’s technical panel said, it would be done in third week of October. “Update would depend on necessary papers including result of dope test conducted on that particular day of the setting record,” he told HT.
Neeraj Chopra under IAAF testing pool
Meanwhile, India’s world junior record holder in javelin throw Neeraj Chopra has been included under the IAAF Registered Testing Pool. He is the first Indian athlete to be included in the list this season. The Haryana thrower had set world record of 86.48m during the IAAF world junior championships at the Polish city of Bydgoszcz on July 23. The mark is also a senior national record.
Under the IAAF RTP, Chopra will now have to furnish his whereabouts to the international body for a one-hour window on a daily basis for out-of-competition doping tests. Three missed tests will invite a two-year ban.