The Sports-India Community

One year of no international competition and we are back to old habits.

jayakris wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 6:28 pm How do you break your PB by over 4 meters just like that?? I guess it is possible from age 22 to age 25... Congrats to Kamalpreet, if she is clean, but it is hard to believe.

If you are stocking up spinach a whole year and Govt is not trying to control its sale or consumption since Covid has interfered with their routine, it is possible for you to improve your PB by four metres!!
Her best so far had been 61.04 in a Railway championship in 2018. She did not have anything better than 60.25 before that. Her coach has been quoted in one of the reports today to say that she was capable of 68 metres!
My own reading is she would be down to 58-59 by the time inter-State (final trials) comes in June. She might skip it or else there could be a "niggle" (most of our 400 runners are having such niggles nowadays!) just before or during the meet. If there is a meet in between we would know for sure.
Will she enter in an international competition in order to prepare for Olympics? We will have to see how AFI tackles this. Looks doubtful.

Sin Hombre wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 7:30 pm One year of no international competition and we are back to old habits.

Habits die hard!
It has become very difficult to assess performance in Indian athletics. Not unexpected though. But the scale of spinach consumption is beyond anyone's imagination, it looks.
NADA will have to step up through April-June. I doubt whether they would do that. Even now there would be pressure on them after an international level athlete, three gold winner in Asian Games, a camper and a sure bet for Olympics, tested positive. One more was a walker, not in Olympic contention.

Okay, Mugu has spoken, and that puts it to rest. We will watch what events she takes part in.

What is the deal with false starts? If you have a false start and are disqualified, are you not tested? Seems like Hima had a very close false start in the 100m. False start

prasen9 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 20, 2021 4:01 pm What is the deal with false starts? If you have a false start and are disqualified, are you not tested? Seems like Hima had a very close false start in the 100m. False start

Indian athletes often use ""false start" to avoid a contest either because they are wary of a rival or are in poor form but compulsions from sponsors, state units, employers, coaches etc might not allow them to withdraw altogether. Hima Das's might have been a genuine false start but those who have been following Indian athletics had this feeling that it was expected. A few of the other prominent athletes have either dropped out or not entered at all or not confirmed entries.
Dope-testing can be done at any time during a meet, prior to it or after it. In athletics, in-competition period begins 12 hours before the event and ends with the completion of the testing process. Rules may vary in other sports. Generally it is 24 hours before the championship (not event).All prohibited substances are tested during an in-competition period which is not the case with out of competition testing. If athletes are "on dope", that is they are yet to get it washed out of the system, they would stay away from competition. Some of them may enter but may withdraw at the last minute since doubts might come up whether they could be caught. If an athlete or several athletes are skipping one or two meets without any particular injury having been discussed in earlier reports then one can be more or less sure that there could be a doping angle to it.

If someone drops out of a meet, WADA should ask for a dope test right away.

prasen9 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 20, 2021 6:45 pm If someone drops out of a meet, WADA should ask for a dope test right away.

That would be ideal. WADA cannot keep track of this since there are hundreds of such athletics meets. NADA can and sometimes does. Based on intelligence reports, AIU, integrity arm of WA (formerly IAAF), may also intervene. But the athlete has to be big and suspicions have to be strong. We have to hope this time, prior to Olympics, testing would be much more than in previous editions. Every four years they do announce such plans. But this time IOC has extended its authority over testing to eight weeks prior to Games instead of the usual four. International Testing Agency (ITA), delegated by the IOC, will do the testing. They were already there at NIS, Patiala in Oct-Nov-Dec. Hope they catch more of the dopers.

I would hope that if they catch someone doping, they allow a player from the same country go up assuming that they have met the qualification requirements. That is because typically the doper thwarted a fellow country-person from moving on and we are fixing the error. Not so much for athletics but where countries have quotas or limitations on the number of athletes per event, etc.

arjun2761 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 06, 2021 5:59 am Neeraj has the top outdoor mark for this year which is young. However, somewhat surprised that he had the second best mark for last year because I thought a few track and field events were held later in the year in Europe and elsewhere. Neeraj is likely one of the top 3-4 javelin throwers at this point, so let's hope he can keep getting better this year.

Jonathan Vetter threw 91.50 mtr to take over the world lead over Neeraj Chopra. Vetter was also world leader last year over Neeraj's second.

Let us wait for some big international meets to see where Neeraj stands in front of other javelin throwers. As I see there is a diamond league meeting in GBR on 23rd May. Hope Neeraj is able to travel there for the meet.

I think, Britain right now does not allow Indians to enter their country. They have to see whether a special case could be made out for some of our athletes. Then the question of quarantine process may come up.
Our relay teams missed World Relays since the Netherlands won't grant permission for a transit halt. It was called off at the last moment. The qualification attempt of the women's 4x100 team has become uncertain following this since it has fallen from 19th to 22nd in the list for Tokyo. The men's (14th) and women's (15th) 4x400 teams are still within the qualification bracket (16 teams).
All the teams could have clinched automatic places for Olympics had they competed in Poland. The standards were poor. On the final day the cold was bitter to the extent of leaving European athletes shivering! (Can't say how our teams would have fared in those conditions)

^^^ Oh boy, what a mess!

Definitely going to impact our preparations for Tokyo. Neeraj missing out on world class competition will definitely hurt.

Not sure our relay teams were going to do anything at the Olympic level. They are Asian contenders, so the Olympics would mostly be about them getting good experience and hopefully the 4 x 400 teams do still qualify.

We will be getting an indication of how Neeraj is throwing as he starts competing June10th in Lisbon, Portugal. More completions in Europe to follow soon after.

Opens season with a Gold @ 83.18m. Doesn't seem on par for the Tokyo, but hoping it's just a warmup with better throws to come in next month.