ATHLETICS | AFI hopes for better show in Commonwealth and Asian Games

The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) is banking on its structural changes to hope that the country’s athletes would return better results in the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games next year.

“We are doing a lot of new things. We are absolutely confident that we will do far better at the Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games than we did the last time…in terms of individual performances, timings, records, as well as the number of medals. We keep building blocks one by one. We believe that small improvements are the best improvements,” said AFI spokesperson Adille Sumariwalla on Sunday.

The AFI think-tank is contemplating whether to let athletes go step-by-step to bigger events.

“Whether the World championships is somewhere we want to expose everybody or bring them through Asian championships, Asian Games and Commonwealth Games… anybody who qualifies like (getting) 50th out of 50 or 56th out of 56th (rankings), then it’s quite demoralising because if you’re the last person to qualify, then you’ll probably be among the last few to finish. That could be a big hit to your confidence for the future.

“A very strong internal discussion is going on whether we should only let those guys who qualify go, or maybe we keep a qualifying standard at 50 per cent of the rankings.”

Sumariwalla pointed out that old-fashioned coaches used to “under-train” and “save” athletes, including quarter-milers who needed to run several races but who eventually turned out to be “one race athletes,” leading to “load issue.”