The Standard Operating Procedures outlined by Sports Authority of India on Thursday has evoked a mixed response from athletes, coaches and National Sports Federations. The athletes want to know the date they can step outside their hostel rooms, get on to the respective pitches, tracks, mats, rings and resume training. SAI officials said the SOPs will be in place with immediate effect but were not willing to set a deadline to it.
While some like Athletics Federation of India have given a thumbs-up to the SOPs, some federations like wrestling and boxing believe that they will not be in a position to call for camps of their elite athletes right now, if the prescribed guidelines are followed.
In fact, Athletics Federation of India president Adille Sumariwala confirmed to THE WEEK that the track and field athletes will resume training outdoors from May 25. "Our athletes will start with light physical training outdoors at SAI centres on Monday. We will be very mindful of the SOPS and guidelines issued by the government. All the protocols have been put in place."
SAI, yesterday, divided sports into four categories: non-contact sports (archery, shooting, cycling, athletics, fencing), minimal/medium-contact sports (football, hockey, volleyball. basketball), full-contact sports (boxing, judo, wrestling, karate, wushu), water sports (canoeing, rowing, sailing. No swimming).
In the full-contact sports, SAI SOPs advised "selective training activities may be performed by athletes individually without engaging in physical combat with other athletes, utilising alternative practice equipment; in boxing and wrestling, human sparring is prohibited, sparring with personal dummies will be allowed; in badminton, players have been advised to use own shuttles and while singles training is allowed, doubles training is yet to get the go-ahead.
Wrestling Federation will be holding a meeting on Saturday with its coaches and players to decide the way ahead, but it appears the federation will not call for a camp of its senior men's and women's national team any time soon given the restrictions. "We had already informed SAI that we cannot have a training camp without individual sparring partners for our wrestlers. As per these guidelines, training is not possible. Our wrestlers are better off training at home, in their mud akhadas. The top wrestlers have their own sparring partner staying with them at home, these conditions are difficult to follow as we see it," said a top WFI official. He said president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh will take a call on the way forward after consulting with coaches and players. Usually, the men's camp is at the SAI Sonepat Centre while the women's camp is at SAI Centre, Lucknow.
In badminton, the national camp will continue to remain shut as the Telangana government has not eased restrictions and given the green signal for sports activities to resume in lockdown 4.0. Though the MHA guidelines have permitted sports activities sans spectators to resume, the Pullela Gopichand-SAI Badminton academy will remain shut. According to Ajay Singhania, secretary general, Badminton Association of India, said, "Our academies are not reopening as of now. The state government has taken a call and we have to respect that. We don't see a big problem as of now. We already have four players who have qualified for Olympics. The BWF has announced the qualification process dates, so, there is time. We will wait and watch and then take a call on resumption of national camps."
Meanwhile, boxing, too, is unlikely to call for a camp post the reopening of the SAI centres. Usually, boxers train at NIS Patiala but all of them are currently in their homes and adhering to a prescribed training programme given by coaches and high performance director Santiago Nieva.
As per reports, all the boxers who have qualified for the Olympics and those availing funding through TOPS have been provided with individual training equipment at their homes. Their daily and weekly training programme are recorded by them and shared in a central database pool with coaches, officials and Santiago. Till further relaxation of guidelines happens, it appears the pugilists will follow the existing schedule.
Sumariwala, on May 19, a day after new guidelines for lockdown 4.0 were announced, wrote a letter to DG, SAI, urging him to allow track and field athletes based at SAI centres to resume full training at the earliest. "Our athletes are staying in the camps in the protected environment and have been briefed about the protocols to be followed once training starts. The athletes are ready and need to start their workouts at the earliest."
