Olympian and World Athletics Vice-President Adille Sumariwalla on preparing Indian athletes for the upcoming Asian Games, navigating the country’s doping crisis and the debate about who makes a good sports administrator. The session was moderated by Nihal Koshie, Associate Editor, The Indian ExpressNihal Koshie: Over 25 national records have fallen in four months, unprecedented in such a short span. What is the reason?After the Paris Olympics, we decentralised camps. Reliance, JSW and state governments such as Odisha and Tamil Nadu are bringing in foreign coaches. Keeping people in a national camp for 300 days, where they are away from home, was not ideal. We said, ‘You train wherever you want, except the relays, which is a team event.’ Competition has increased between the different training centres. The Neeraj Chopra effect has played an important part. Records are being broken over and over again in the same event. This shows there is bench strength. We also made it mandatory for an athlete to participate in at least two events before the final trial. This helped because Indian coaches have put into the minds of the athletes that they have to protect themselves, otherwise they will get injured. This is one of the biggest problems we have. They say, ‘Protect yourself and win a gold medal at the Asian Games and get more money’, but you may not get a medal at the Olympics.Read | ‘90% of India’s tracks substandard’: Adille Sumariwalla’s shocking claim on infrastructureNihal Koshie: This is the year of the Commonwealth Games (CWG) and the Asian Games. Have Indian athletes peaked too early?I can assure you that our athletes will peak and improve their performances at the Asian Games. Now, they are getting into the system of competing, as they do in Europe. They are still setting records now but, in my view, they haven’t peaked. Time will tell whether I’m right or wrong.Nihal Koshie: Shouldn’t the focus be on CWG, given it is a tougher competition in track and field?All the coaches we spoke to, including foreign coaches, felt that it would be impossible to peak now and peak again in September-October. Sadly, both come in the same year. We have to focus on the Asian Games. Again, the country needs medals. At the Commonwealth Games, most of our sports that are medal hopes, are not happening. So, we have to send our athletics squad. If left to the think tank of the athletics federation, we would have just sent a token representation to the Commonwealth Games, focused on the Asian Games, and then prepared for the World Championships in 2027 and the Olympic Games in 2028.Story continues below this adSandeep Dwivedi: You are in the running for the presidency of World Athletics. What is the one change you want to bring about, globally and in India?I would definitely bring in a vision statement. There’s lots that can be done. Africa is a completely different ballgame; South America is different; the islands of the Caribbean, Oceania and America are different. Currently, I am travelling and listening to people. Being a world organisation, we have to see how we can give equal opportunity to everybody. For India, development is key; like in kids athletics and we need more coaches and trainers. We have 650 districts, so any number of trainers is not sufficient. In India, we need to create an ecosystem; you need athletes, more coaches and qualified technical officials.On doping among junior athletes | The parents and coaches of junior athletes are giving them these substances for greed and awards. I have been pushing for criminalisation of doping over the last seven yearsSandeep Dwivedi: There have been interventions, even from the courts, that people who have only played the sport need to be administrators.Just because you can run fast from point A to point B does not make you a good administrator. Being a good administrator also comes from your education, the work that you have done and your vision. A politician can be a good administrator. The Lodha Committee is wrong, the courts are wrong and the judges are wrong if they believe that being an athlete makes you a good administrator. Today, if I have to go into Mantralaya, I still have to stand outside and cut a parchi (token slip). When the AFI (Athletics Federation of India) president was a politician, I walked in with him to go and meet the Prime Minister of India without a parchi. So, are they useful? Yes, if they are used properly.Story continues below this adMihir Vasavda: You held the 100m national record for 18 years. Despite recent improvements, why do you think India’s 100m record progression has been slow?For a very long time, we didn’t get 5’10”, 5’11” sprinters. That was the problem. We had smaller sprinters. I don’t think anybody took sprinters seriously. I was one of those guys fighting for the sprinters. The Indian physique is more akin to middle- and long-distance running, jumps, and, in the case of some women, throws. No country, apart from the USA, is really good at all events.Today, you have far better tracks and shoes, so there are opportunities. But if you look at the depth in Indian sprinting, my view is: Don’t waste your time on individual events at the moment. Spend your time on the relays, like we did in the 400m. We could not win the individual 400m at the Asian Games in the last three, four or five editions. But we could win medals in the relay, including a lot of golds. At the moment, we have a damn good set of sprinters. Focus on the relay and we will slowly graduate into individual events.On whether sportspeople can run sport | Just because you can run fast from point A to point B doesn’t make you a good administrator. Being a good administrator comes from your education, the work that you have done and your visionMihir Vasavda: When you see these records being broken, what’s your instinctive reaction? Are you happy, or are you praying the athlete doesn’t test positive?Story continues below this adMy reaction is, ‘Finally, finally we are getting there.’ All the hard work that was done for so many years is now showing results. To me, that’s a relief.Mihir Vasavda: From an outsider’s point of view, some people view these records with scepticism because of India’s doping cases.Total rubbish. Are we number one in doping? Yes. But look at the athletes breaking the records. Take the 100m guys, for example. They have been tested enough. They have never had a doping problem. Look at pole vault. Records have been broken three, four or five times between men and women. There has been no issue of doping. Look at long jump, high jump. No issue of doping. I’m not worried about my elite athletes training at notified centres. If somebody comes from nowhere and suddenly produces a performance,I would be sceptical. I’m definitely worried about the juniors because I have little control over them. They are training at different centres or at home with their personal coaches.Story continues below this adMihir Vasavda: Since you mentioned juniors, they might not fully understand what they are consuming or how to procure these drugs. Have you identified the source?Yes and no. There are minors whose own parents are giving them these substances, and they have declared it during hearings. Parents do it for greed — for jobs, marks and admissions. Coaches do it for cash awards or the Dronacharya Award.The sources? You can’t do anything about the source because there was no criminalisation of doping. That’s something I have been pushing for over the last seven years. Today, they have realised that what I was saying about criminalising doping was right. Without law, there is not much you can do. People who distribute these substances or administer them, and especially those who give them to minors, should face criminal action. If it is done to minors, they can even be arrested under the Juvenile Justice Act.Shivani Naik: Is there a way to incentivise not doping?Story continues below this adToday, with the new championship (Enhanced Games), dopers are being incentivised to go and run a championship where they are fully doped. One of the things we are looking at with the government is to say that if you have a cash award, you don’t get your full money upfront. So, if you were going to get three crores, you would get it over the course of three years; one crore each year. And in the meantime, if you get caught for doping, the rest of your money is forfeited. I don’t know whether it’s an incentive or a disincentive, but we are looking at various things. To me, there are only two things. One is education and the other is a deterrent.Shivani Naik: After several mistakes at World Relays with baton exchanges, what has been done to remedy this?It was very, very disappointing at Botswana. We are doing whatever is needed to ensure it doesn’t happen again. We have changed some things. After that, our girls went and did well in Taiwan. These things will happen. It’s a relay.USA has dropped the baton as many times as they won the relay. I am not saying that it is a good thing but these things do happen. We have made some changes in the technique and the coaching. A lot of them were overawed because they were running for the first time in a world event. When I talked to them one-on-one, they confided in me, saying, ‘Sir, I got scared.’ That is why we send them on these smaller trips to Taiwan and other places. There are not too many places where they can run relays. Now we have a national relays competition to get them into that whole thought process. We are creating that ecosystem so our athletes will get more attuned. And I can tell you today that at Los Angeles, if things go as planned, you may get a big surprise.Story continues below this adAmit Kamath: Have you noticed a pattern with certain training centres, coaches or states when it comes to doping?Yes. There are centres in Haryana, like Sonipat and Panipat, for which we have already given intelligence. There are centres in Tamil Nadu. Some athletes suddenly come to a national, do fantastic timing and then disappear. We have given intelligence for that. There are athletes who travel internationally to avoid the anti-doping agency testers. There was a girl who ran a great 400 metres, she was taken to meet the Prime Minister. We refused to make her run the relay at the Asian Games in 2018. She went to the chief coach and said, ‘I will give you Rs 50 lakh, because if I win a relay gold, I will get Rs 3 crore from Haryana.’ Finally, we got two golds without her in the women’s 4x400m and the mixed relay. She then tested positive. We would have lost two golds at the Asian Games. You can imagine the pressure put on me to make her run not only from the government but also the media.Nitin Sharma: Since the Tokyo Olympics, only two athletes have reached the Olympic final, with Neeraj Chopra winning the silver at the Paris Olympics. How do you see that?You have to understand that far more athletes are qualifying for the Worlds or the Olympics. But there is a problem. They are qualifying at the bottom of the rung. When we start qualifying in the top-15, that’s when our chances of running in the finals and winning medals will increase.Story continues below this adPritish Raj: India is moving towards hosting big-ticket events. However, at the National Championships in Bhubaneswar, there were multiple technical glitches, including a missing hurdle in the women’s heat and multiple false starts. How will such things be rectified?I apologise on behalf of Athletics Federation of India (AFI). What happened in the hurdles was inexcusable. It was a human error and it shouldn’t have happened. We issued a show-cause notice, and action was taken. The false starts during sprints is something that is due to movement on the starting blocks. I think we need better training so that such things can be avoided.Pritish Raj: Carrying sports equipment is a big headache for athletes. Recently, Railways came up with a policy to relax the rules for sports equipment but have excluded poles used in pole vault from it.AFI doesn’t run railways or airlines. What we can do is to push the Sports Ministry to get a solution by talking with other stakeholders. These athletes were mistreated by the Railway officials for tying poles to trains, while we see multiple items carried similarly in trains every day. All we can do is to look for a common solution.Sriram Veera: When you were a teenager, your father, for years, thought you were going to the library. Then, he read a newspaper that ‘my son is the fastest man in the country…’I got into engineering but chucked it up to do sports. This was in 1975-76; you only did what your parents told you to do. I was a good student. So for them to understand that I wanted to do sport was unthinkable. My mother cried for I don’t know how long when I gave up engineering. She used to say, ‘My son will beg on the streets to do sports.’ My father said, ‘You will have to leave home if you don’t listen to me.’ That is why I took a job with Tata, because that would get me a quarters to stay in if he threw me out of the house.My passion was strong and I was determined. When something gets into my head, it is very difficult to take it out. Finally, my father was very proud, although, for a long time, he wouldn’t admit it.Sriram Veera: How long did this phase last?Maybe 10 years or so. I was only allowed to live in the house. Apart from that, I never had anything. It was like a hotel room. I went to college, went to work, went for training. I studied, came home, put my clothes to wash. And got my mother to give me meals. But that is what was my driving force. Again, I don’t have a single medal from Juniors because I always kept getting injured. My coach kept overtraining me. Even in the Seniors, I had a lot of injuries. But in the first year I came to the Seniors (level), I won the 100m and was unbeaten 11 times, until I retired.Sriram Veera: Did you and your father ever make up?There was no make up as such. My dad’s friends used to tell me, ‘Your father is very proud.’ Later, he really respected me. And I did well for myself. I’m not begging on the streets (laughs). We became very close and I was by his side when he passed away in Devlali (Maharashtra).