Open National C’ships review: Absentee athletes, scheduling issues mar disappointing event

There is an understandable lull after a hectic athletics season that featured the Asian Championships at home and the World Championships in London.

Even after giving allowance for such a dip in performance towards the end of a longish season as something to be expected because of fatigue, not to speak of the lack of motivation, what accrued at the Open National Championships in Chennai was simply disappointing. Viewed in the context of the busy 2018 season that includes the Commonwealth and the Asian Games, all the more so.

“The scheduling of the Open is always questionable”, said a coach, long familiar with the whimsical ways of the Athletics Federation of India. “Why can’t we have it before the major international championships every time?” He posed the question that many of us would also wish to ask.

Top names missing

The Open National had at least ensured good participation through the years since the employers, led by the two main units, the Railways and the Services, made it a point to have their best line-ups. This time, even that did not happen.

The AFI was late in coming up with a set of criteria (guidelines as per AFI terminology) for selection to the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games last year. Not many athletes would have known the criteria before the Chennai meet nor did the federation announce whether the performance in the National would be considered for selection.

More than 20 top athletes decided to skip the Nationals this time, for some reason or the other. These absentees included around a dozen national record holders and gold medallists from the Asian championships in Bhubaneshwar. Of the eight individual gold medallists there, only two – middle distance runner Ajay Kumar Saroj and distance runner G Lakshmanan – competed in Chennai. Shot putter Manpreet Kaur was under a provisional doping suspension, and some of them might have been injured or indisposed.

The meet in Chennai saw just two new meet records, both in the men’s section. But there were a few other stunning performances, to make it a noteworthy landmark in Indian athletics, no matter that a majority of the events produced mediocre results.

Two high jumpers scale new heights

Tamil Nadu’s Santhosh Kumar clocked 50.16s in the 400m hurdles for one of the records (previous 50.26s) while Siddhanth Yadav of the Railways scaled 2.23m in high jump along with V Bharathi of the Services for the other. Yadav took the gold on a countback.

Yadav, inter-university champion in 2013, added 10cm to his personal best of 2.13m (2013) in placing himself joint third on the Indian all-time list, behind national record holder Tejaswin Shankar (2.26m, yet to be ratified) and former national record holder Hari Sankar Roy (2.25m). Bharathi, who added an unbelievable 14cm to his previous personal best of 2.09m (2015 and 2016) is now jointly third-ranked in the elite list.

High jump progression normally is laborious. Shankar, just 18, had added 12cm in 2016 to his previous year’s best to knock off Roy’s national mark. By all accounts, the Delhi boy is prodigiously talented. Perhaps we now have three equally talented high jumpers with Yadav and Bharathi joining him. Time only will tell whether they can sustain their rate of progression. This season, Asia had 19 jumpers who had done 2.24m or better with world champion Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar having scaled 2.40m.

Steeplechasers shine as medal prospects

Chennai seemed to have provided substantial help to the steeplechasers. While they did not better a national record or even a meet record, they turned in amazing performances that caused eyebrows to be raised.

Avinash Sable, an Armyman from the South-Western Command, till now better known as a half marathoner and cross-country runner, had made a big impression in steeplechase this year. He tucked himself into the fifth place in the Federation Cup at Patiala in June with 9:06.42, improved his timing to 9:02.27 while coming fourth in the inter-State at Guntur in July, was behind his best while coming second in the Services championships at Bengaluru in August with 9:09.01, before hitting the Open trail.

In Chennai, he beat Jaiveer Singh, the man who beat him in the Services championships, in posting a highly impressive 8:39.81 that ranks ninth in Asia this season. Sable also moved into the sixth best slot in the Indian all-time charts where Jaiveer is third with 8:36.36 clocked in 2011. Gopal Saini’s 8:30.88 for silver in the Asian championships in Tokyo in 1981 remains one of the oldest national records.

Chinta Yadav’s 3000m steeplechase victory in the women’s section in 9:49.23 was as awe-inspiring as the feat of Sable. The 24-year-old Uttar Pradesh athlete, who represents the Railways, is a middle-distance runner-cum-steeplechaser. That she managed to clock such a fabulous timing a day after coming second in the 5,000m at Chennai should deserve praise.

Chinta Yadav is now third behind Lalita Babar and Sudha Singh on the Indian all-time lists for 3,000m steeplechase. Of course, Babar has 10 timings of 9:43.30 or better with her national record at 9:19.76 while Sudha Singh, Asian Games champion in 2010 and Asian champion this year, who did not finish in Chennai, has eight timings better than 9:49.00. Sudha’s best is 9:26.55 clocked in Shanghai last year.

Chinta Yadav’s progression through just one season this year has been nothing less than spectacular. Having clocked a personal best of 10:32.88 while taking the silver at last year’s Open at Lucknow, Yadav took the bronze in this year’s Fed Cup in 10:21.20, then clocked 10:10.22 for the gold in the inter-State at Guntur in July and a month later timed 9:59.44 in the inter-Railway championships at Tiruchirappalli. One more month and she had cut off more than 10 seconds from that timing to be placed sixth in the Asian lists this season.

So, India seem to have good medal prospects in the steeplechase in the Asian Games next year, in both men and women’s sections. But don’t count the chickens before they hatch, because so many things can go wrong between now and next August.

Ajay Kumar Saroj impresses again

Almost unnoticed but significantly in the Asian Games context, Ajay Kumar Saroj clocked a personal best 3:41.93 in the 1,500m. The Uttar Pradesh man, despite winning the gold in the Asian championships which entitled him a berth in the World Championships, was one of the three dropped by the AFI that led to an uproar in the media.

Saroj had timed 3:43.27 while winning the Indian Grand Prix title in New Delhi in May this year, his best till then. By clocking his new personal best and asserting his rising stature, he quietly moved into the fifth position on the Indian all-time lists behind Bahadur Prasad (3:38.00, 1995), Chatholi Hamza (3:39.9), Sajeesh Joseph (3:41.7) and Pritam Bind (3:41.9). The last three clocked their timings in the Open National at Jamshedpur in 2007. These were hand-timed.

Saroj, who also won the 800m in Chennai (1:49.05), is currently seventh in the Asian lists for 1,500m this year. If he can better Bahadur Prasad’s 22-year-old national record, he might stand a chance of coming into the top four and come into medal contention in the Asian Games.

Among the notable upsets in Chennai was the one registered by K Sreejithmon in triple jump. With a torn spike after three jumps, the Kerala jumper edged both RenjithMaheswary and Arpinder Singh with a modest 16.15m. Arpinder was third despite jumping the same distance as second-placed Rakesh Babu (16.06) but he happened to have just one legal jump to Babu’s two which clinched the placing. Renjith’s fourth place came at 16.00m.

Both Renjith and Arpinder are 17-metre jumpers. Even if given allowance for an end-of-the-season slump, shouldn’t they be expected to jump around 16.40-16.50?

TOPS list results

Among those chosen by the Government for the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS), distance runner G Lakshmanan’s double was on expected lines. In the company of the athletes from Bahrain, mostly Kenya, Ethiopia-born, and the Japanese next year at the Asian Games, the Tamil Nadu man will have to strive hard for anything better than a minor medal.

Tejinder Pal Singh Toor (18.86m) and Om Prakash Singh Karhana (18.80m) were well below their best in shot put. Both are 20-metre-plus putters and they should be expected to touch 19m at least every time they compete in a National.

It is for the AFI to enquire into the mass-scale absenteeism witnessed in the Open this time. Were athletes like Muhammed Anas and Arokia Rajiv preparing themselves for the National championships in 400 metres scheduled to be held this month at Dharamshala? What about athletes like Nayana James (long jump) and Swapna Barman (heptathlon) both of whom are in the TOPS list?

The absence of the National Anti-Doping Agency at Chennai should also be viewed with extreme concern by the Sports Ministry and the SAI. Long-term preparations and schemes like the TOPS will go haywire if “spotters” are to assess performances achieved without the deterrence of doping control.

Probably the athletes were also caught unawares by the absence of the dope-testers as was the AFI and the media.