Doping? You must be joking, look at our rankings

By Manisha Malhotra Indian athletics has been rocked by another scandal, with some of the country’s top athletes testing positive for banned substances. While people close to Indian athletics always knew about the widespread use of “dope”, this time it is out in the open. This is not the first time one of our athletes has been caught. However, with the international authorities involved, this is the first time it couldn’t be hushed up or isolated. We have been once again shamed in the international realm and who is to blame? In my opinion, it shouldn’t be the athletes who should be shouldering all the blame, but the authorities. They have always known about the use of various “vitamins”, but they have done nothing about it. Instead, there is conjecture that they have even been part of the whole nexus. While all begin to point finger, there should be some facts that are stated here. [caption id=“attachment_36227” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Two of India’s quartet of golden girls, Mandeep Kaur (2L) and Sini Jose (L), whose heroic runs had helped the country clinch the 4x400m relay gold in the Commonwealth Games and Asiad last year, tested positive for steroids. Reuters”] [/caption] Indian athletes come from a poverty stricken background and most of them are uneducated. They trust their coaches/doctors with any pills or vitamins neither fully knowing what they are ingesting nor knowing the repercussions of illegal substances. They just want to do well since that is their only path to a steady job and a less poor future. I have personally attended national meets where the locker rooms and bathrooms could easily be mistaken for a hospital dump with a significant number of used syringes strewn about.  It is not only the top athletes using “dope” but everyone, since even coming fifth in the nationals could secure some level of government job. So, it would be naïve to believe that the officials don’t know this is happening. The federation have also hired a group of coaches/doctors from the eastern bloc of Russia namely Ukraine, Belarus, etc. who are still believers of the old ideology and are the main suppliers of various pills. A bulk of the athletes are sprinters and their coach Yuri Ogordonik has often been nicknamed “medicine man” within the fraternity. While lots of coaches would never venture down this path because of their reputations, we employ coaches that are over the hill so as to speak and really are not highly sought after. So, again does the federation not have control on its hires, or is it so far removed from reality that they again feign ignorance? The most obvious fact that must be noted is that even with all these “vitamins” being taken, we still rank nowhere in the world. So what is the point? It would be understandable if we were trying to become number one in the world from number four, but if we are wallowing in the pits of obscurity all this is just a waste. It can be said that to be the best in the world of athletics, you would have to “supplement” your diet. However, that has to be done in the most scientific of manners and it is not something that any doctor can do. There are global experts specialising in this field and we have none. Hopefully, we can learn our lesson — though I doubt it — and take a step back, clean up the sport and start developing athletes the right way. We need to bring in reputed coaches, and support staff that can harness talent and make results sustainable. Manisha Malhotra is an ex-professional tennis player who is now the CEO of the Mittal Champions Trust where she spends her time nurturing sportsmen and tries to extricate them from the mess called Indian sport.