Rio Summer Olympics \ Summer Paralympics 2016

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jaydeep
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Re: Rio Summer Olympics \ Summer Paralympics 2016

Post by jaydeep »

Indian athletes' Rio qualification marks come under IAAF scanner
According to leading athletics statistician Heinrich Hubbeling, co-editor of IAAF's National Records for all countries project, a list of Indian athletes with doubtful qualifying records reportedly includes the names of triple jumper Renjith Maheswary, long jumper Ankit Sharma and sprinters Dutee Chand and Srabani Nanda.

The superhuman efforts of Renjith, who leaped to 17.30m in Bengaluru on the last day of qualification, and Ankit Sharma, who touched down at 8.19m in Almaty, were under the scanner because of huge variation in their performances from the past and the subsequent flop show at Rio where they recorded leaps of 16.13m and 7.67m respectively.

Top international athletics statisticians, who keep a tab on the athletes' performances, have compiled a list of such doubtful performances and removed the names from their record list. Hubbeling said his study was also backed up by the Tilastopaja database maintained by noted statistician Mirko Jalava, which included all these marks valued as doubtful by Mirko.
"In the 1990s we had a similar situation mostly by African countries, which entered athletes with supposedly faked performances. When I pointed out this situation to the IAAF, the respective federations got warnings and this cheating stopped. For some years now this cheating has been resumed by some other federations," Hubbeling said after compiling the results.
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Re: Rio Summer Olympics \ Summer Paralympics 2016

Post by jayakris »

Pathetic, isn't it? We are now aping the pathetic stuff that even African countries stopped doing 2 decades ago. How laughably behind the times are we? Really, what bothers me most about our doping sometimes (in a sardonic way) is how we cannot even dope right. I mean, we look so incredibly archaic and stupid in how we dope. We create so much news doing it in the stupidest way, and never even winning darn thing with it. What a laughing stock we've become!
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Re: Rio Summer Olympics \ Summer Paralympics 2016

Post by prasen9 »

Jay, you think it is doping? I read it as officials just recording the time leniently to make it appear less. Note Coe saying that it has to be a "bona fide reading". I am not sure and it is possibly doping. Maybe fudging with the timing (process or equipment) is harder and is not done. In field events, it is possibly easier if someone is measuring the distance to fudge it a bit. 30-40cm can be easily tacked on. But, again, as I said I don't know exactly if that happened.
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Re: Rio Summer Olympics \ Summer Paralympics 2016

Post by jayakris »

At least some of it is from doping, I suppose? Not all of those timings/distances were measured in India.
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Re: Rio Summer Olympics \ Summer Paralympics 2016

Post by prasen9 »

I think they found someone in Almaty to fudge with things. India had a Russian coach Dmitry Snesarev and an Ukrainian Coach Dmitry Vinaykin. The old Soviet block countries' athletes used to train together etc. while representing the USSR. It is highly likely that they know someone in Khazakhstan. Also, it is possible that the Khazakhs fudged the timing/readings to have their own athletes qualify and the rising tide raised the Indian boats too.

Of course, some of it is doping. The reference to the African countries was wrt fudging readings, I think. Renjith M. is always a confirmed cheat. He was doping and possibly getting help from the officials. He possibly can be the world's expert on how many ways you can fudge things.
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Re: Rio Summer Olympics \ Summer Paralympics 2016

Post by sameerph »

True, this blog from veteran writer K.P. Mohan has bit more details of this -

Anything to become an Olympian!

Looks at Ranjit's data -
Renjith Maheswary IND 17.30 -16
Suspicious mark: 17.30 +0.9 Bangalore IND 11 July 2016
Best outside suspicious: 16.56 Hyderabad IND 29 June 2016
Perf Rio 2016: 16.13 +0.5 Rio de Janeiro BRA 15 August 2016
Sequence of marks 2016: 16.45 – 16.16 – 16.35 – 16.47 – 16.56 – 16.43 – 17.30 (incl. 17.30-16.93-16.75-16.55) – 16.13 (Rio, incl. 16.13-15.99-15.80).

Reason for suspicion: Result so much further than other meetings in 2016. Result achieved on the last day of qualification, July 11th.
He never went past 16.56 in a year before that monster 17.30 out of nowhere only to come down 16.13 at Rio.

So, obvious what he was upto to only qualify.

Similar performance from long jumper Ankit Sharma who seems to have takes some training from Renjith. :D
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Re: Rio Summer Olympics \ Summer Paralympics 2016

Post by prasen9 »

Thank you Sameer. It was pretty clear to all of us that the timings/distances are cooked/fudged. Not only Indian officials cheat, but, also those in the rest of the world especially in the erstwhile Soviet block countries. You have to know about the venue where this goes on and enter the tournament. Then, you perform reasonably and the bonus is added --- then you see if you make it or not. Cooking the timings happens (okay, I can just say that it used to happen) at all levels in India --- sometimes for no obvious gain than to just make the athletes look good and be happy! (I have suspected it has happened in even college-level races I ran.) I suspected the Khazakhs were doing this but had no proof. Now, it seems there is statistical data that shows this :-(
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Re: Rio Summer Olympics \ Summer Paralympics 2016

Post by Prashant »

Does qualification for Olympics really provide enough incentive to indulge in this? I mean, they are obviously aware that they have no hope at the actual event, so apparently just qualification induces them to cheat. Why? Status? Ability to say "I qualified for Olympics"? I don't know if I understand...
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Re: Rio Summer Olympics \ Summer Paralympics 2016

Post by Atithee »

Qualification opens the doors for various hand outs? Free trip to a major tourist destination? These are two incentives that come to mind.
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Re: Rio Summer Olympics \ Summer Paralympics 2016

Post by prasen9 »

First, that you can claim to have been an Olympian. Maybe that opens the door for future jobs. I think there are some "reservations"/points given for Olympians. It is also a status in itself. The other reason could be that they get money. The latter I am not sure.

Also, the coaches' role should not be minimized. I think in some cases, whether their wards qualify for the Olympics or not are used as yardsticks by sports bodies. So, they want it to happen to keep their jobs. The players have nothing to lose, but, get National Records, bragging rights for the future, etc. For example, read this article on one coach. The coach is clearly hired with a goal towards qualifying for the Olympics and is evaluated on the basis of that. For some of these coaches, that may mean the difference between having a decent livelihood or living in a slum!
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Re: Rio Summer Olympics \ Summer Paralympics 2016

Post by Mugundan »

Prasen is right in assessing Renjith, I think. His could be a combination of fudged results and doping. Almaty looks to have manipulated almost all results and it is possible that the long jump one was also done to facilitate qualification not just for Sharma but also for an Iranian, it looks.
As explained here, being an ''Olympian'' is itself an incentive; being a triple Olympian will be huge incentive. Foreign and Indian coaches get retained if they can achieve the target of Olympic qualification. In most cases they too know that our athletes cannot hope beyond that. In this scenario SAI/Govt is fooled into believing that there could be the odd medal.
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Re: Rio Summer Olympics \ Summer Paralympics 2016

Post by prasen9 »

Olympic qualification may be a worthy goal for sports where we are way behind. But, if the goal is impossible using kosher means, first, the government and SAI should not set that as a target and requirement for a coach to keep his job. Improvement norms/requirements should be set in the realm of what is achievable. Second, if a coach is seen to engage in dubious methods and dubious meets to achieve that target, that target will not be considered met, irrespective of whether the IOC allows the person to compete or not. These two put together should fix this particular malaise.
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Re: Rio Summer Olympics \ Summer Paralympics 2016

Post by Mugundan »

prasen9 wrote:Olympic qualification may be a worthy goal for sports where we are way behind. But, if the goal is impossible using kosher means, first, the government and SAI should not set that as a target and requirement for a coach to keep his job. Improvement norms/requirements should be set in the realm of what is achievable. Second, if a coach is seen to engage in dubious methods and dubious meets to achieve that target, that target will not be considered met, irrespective of whether the IOC allows the person to compete or not. These two put together should fix this particular malaise.
Presuming that this is what the Govt/SAI want and not numbers. This time the effort was clearly aimed at achieving qualification marks and swelling number of athletes for Olympic Games. Towards this, even the men and women 4x100m relay teams were sent abroad with no chance of making it. Unless the authorities (Federation, SAI, Ministry) all work towards achieving performance-based results (as different from numbers-based and medals-based) in athletics things will not improve.
Coaches are asked to set targets. They do set them also. Foreign coaches, especially, promise much and deliver little. Next time they are re-appointed. This time, barring Nikolai Snesarev (since Lalita Babar was his trainee) and Aussie Calvert (Neeraj Chopra), I presume all others are going to be relieved in due course. Yuriy Ogorodnik, the Ukrainian, who has been brought back time and again, foolishly thinking that he might produce a medal out of nowhere, is almost certainly out. He seemed poised to produce a surprise (like he did with women's 4x400 team in Athens) with the men's 4x400 team (of making the final) but eventually that did not happen.
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Re: Rio Summer Olympics \ Summer Paralympics 2016

Post by prasen9 »

We need some scientific thinking and methodical planning. Random numbers/requirements pulled out of nowhere are not going to do anything.
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Re: Rio Summer Olympics \ Summer Paralympics 2016

Post by Prashant »

Make a shortlist of "trusted" meets in other countries, and only send the ones that qualify at one of those. Publish that list of meets 2 years in advance so that there is no excuse for any of them.
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