The Swimming Federation of India has gone and surpassed itself. Its utter lack of transparency in selecting seven athletes to compete in the Belgrade Trophy in Serbia and Sette Colli Trophy in Rome is not such a surprise, given its track record. But it is in practicing deceit and dishonesty with other swimmers that it has crossed limits.
To begin with, the whole selection was shrouded in secrecy. None of the swimmers was intimated that there was a possibility of an Indian team being sent to a couple of meets. And it is a good wager that the selection committee was also kept in the dark. The first anyone spoke officially about an Indian team being sent was when SFI issued a press release.
Take a look at what India’s premier breaststroke swimmer Likith Selvaraj Prema (seen in image above) has to say in response to a tweet by the Sports Authority of India’s official handle.
Very obviously, he is miffed that he has been not only overlooked for selection but also been denied information about training and competition. To be sure, he is not the only wondering why the SFI bosses could not have communicated with them better. Some were told that only three swimmers would travel and were stunned by the decision to expand that number to seven.
First things first.
Of the 13 swimmers who went to Tashkent in April, only Srihari Nataraj, Sajan Prakash, Tanish George Mathew, Kenisha Gupta and Maana Patel survived the cut. Those who missed out are: SP Likith, D Adhithya, AS Anand, Danush Suresh, Chahat Arora, Suvana C Baskar, Divya Satija and Shivani Kataria. Aryan Nehra and Shoan Ganguly are the new faces.
The SFI press release, issued late on Tuesday, specified that Aryan Nehra and Shoan Ganguly would not go to Rome as they did not meet the Qualifying Times set by the local organisers.
It was a tacit suggestion that everyone else who has been entered to compete in Rome met the Qualifying Times. Only SFI can throw light on why it attempted to mislead the media with that hint. The Sette Colli Trophy competition is open to the Italian and foreign swimmers who have achieved the Qualifying Standard Times as per the table below within June 6, 2021, and to the Italian athletes selected for the National 2021 team.
For, of the five Indians entered for the meet, only Srihari Nataraj and Sajan Prakash have clocked times that meet the Qualifying Standard Times. And yes, there was only one other Indian has produced times that would satisfy the requirement laid down by the Italians – Likith SP.
In the absence of any official word on Likith, it can be surmised that the Bangalore based swimmer has been penalised for his protest against the Uzbekistan Swimming Federation officials who manipulated the times of several swimmers on the first and last days of the Uzbekistan Open Swimming Championships in Tashkent.
Instead of backing a swimmer who showed courage in calling out fraudulent methods, SFI appears to have left him in the lurch. What’s more, the entire swimming community has left him to deal with the wayward methods of SFI. If it is a disciplinary reason that slammed the door on him, he deserves a fair hearing.
SFI Secretary-General Monal Chokshi said competitions in Belgrade and Rome were a great opportunity for the Olympic hopefuls to qualify but also good exposure for the swimmers preparing for the Asian Games in 2022. But SFI has left out a number of athletes who could have made a fair bid to get to the Asian Games, individually or as part of relay teams.
Truth to tell, it is clear that SFI, its officials and the legendary coaches have tied themselves in knots by not being transparent and by telling different swimmers different things.
It seems that just two coaches are running the sport in the country. How else can anyone explain the non-selection of swimmers from beyond the Nihar Ameen camp and the Pradeep Kumar camp? It is time to introduce greater transparency from the Swimming Federation of India mandarins.