After closing national camps, the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) dismissed concerns that further doping cases would humiliate the nation in the future on Wednesday. Stating that it will keep an eye on the athletes and provide the NADA with pertinent information. Except for the relay teams, which will continue to be directly supervised by the national organisation. The AFI opted to terminate national camps following the Olympics in Paris.
Due to their inability to test frequently, AFI has long prohibited the selection of non-campers for relay teams. Athletes can now train at the Sports Authority of India’s (SAI) National Centres of Excellence or commercial organisations like JSW, Reliance, and Tata. Additionally, they can train at facilities affiliated with the Army, Navy, Air Force, or states. AFI will assign foreign instructors to certain centers.
Athletes will need to choose these locations if they want to train there. While Olympic and world medallist javelin coach Sergey Makarov will be based at SAI Patiala. US middle and long-distance coach Scott Simmons will join SAI’s NCOE in Bengaluru. At the Thiruvananthapuram SAI center, Jamaican sprint coaches Jason Dawson for men and Jerry Holmes for women have joined. At the national camp at the SAI NCOE site in Thiruvananthapuram.
AFI Lost Faith in Its Athletes
Only the 400-meter runners men, women, and mixed relay teams will train together. AFI has said that Indian relay teams will not be chosen if they do not train together after they perform poorly at the Olympics. Adille Sumariwalla, the outgoing AFI president, stated that a separate monitoring team had been formed to oversee all training locations of athletes. He mentioned that the team would collect information on each athlete and share it with NADA.
Sumariwalla said to the AFI, “We had constituted a committee under IPS officer Sagarpreet Hooda who is commissioner special cell of Delhi Police on doping issue. He has made some recommendations and the AGM has approved the recommendations. Now we will see which are implementable and how we do that. Any new thing will have positive and negative aspects.”
