Neeraj Chopra has given Virat Kohli sound competition: Athletics India chief Adille Sumariwalla
The AFI president feels Neeraj Chopra's Tokyo Olympics javelin gold has made parents think that there is a career beyond cricket in India.
India’s track and field star Neeraj Chopra has been the toast of the nation since winning the gold medal in the javelin throw at the Tokyo Olympics last year.
The ripple effect of that win was evident at Commonwealth Games 2022 with Indian athletes winning medals in sports previously not considered to be India’s forte.
Neeraj Chopra is also among the most-searched Indian personalities online and ranked above the likes of Indian cricketers Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma in Google searches in India last year.
During a media interaction in Mumbai, the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) president Adille Sumariwalla said India needs more champions like Neeraj Chopra and attributed the recent successes to years of planning and execution by the administration.
Excerpts
Q. Indian athletes have done well in the last couple of years. Your thoughts on the development of sports in India?
Adille Sumariwalla: India won three athletics medals at the Commonwealth Games 2018. From three we got to eight at the Commonwealth Games 2022 so that shows progress. We have had so many finalists at the world championships. So we are also close to the tipping point.
It has also been a long journey. National inter-district junior athletic meets are held consistently now for over 15 years. We also identified certain potential medal events like jumps, javelin, discus and race walking around 10-15 years ago and assigned foreign coaches to those disciplines. So it is not something that has happened overnight. There is no magic wand. It’s a result of hard work, strategy and proper planning.
Within a proper ecosystem, everything falls in place. You give the world’s best coach to an athlete but will she/he become a world champion? No. They will need a physio, masseur, doctor, and also a biomechanics expert. So AFI has tried to create the environment for excellence with whatever is available.
Q. What is the role of AFI in creating new champions?
AS: We want our athletes to do well. We want them to make money and get better sponsorship deals so that others see that there is a future in sports, not just in cricket.
Today, not many are saying they want their son to become Virat Kohli. It’s all Neeraj Chopra everywhere. So we definitely need these champions.
We want the country to realise that If Neeraj Chopra can throw sugarcanes in the field and go on to become an Olympic champion, we too can achieve similar success. These are the kinds of leaders we are trying to create.
Q. Indian women athletes have also done very well in the last couple of years…
AS: We live in cities and urban areas so we might be unaware of what women have to go through still in rural areas. I have travelled to over 100 districts personally and girls are still not allowed to go out of their houses without permission in many places.
So we have to make a sea change and it will not happen overnight. It will take years. You need champions like Annu Rani and Hima Das. People should see that if Dutee Chand can drive a BMW car, we should also emulate her. We want our athletes to do well and prosper financially.
Q. How can AFI tackle the issue of doping in India?
AS: The AFI can only educate the athletes and increase testing. And that’s why we want all athletes to train at our national camps. Because at camps, we can monitor them, educate them and test them. But if someone still wants to cheat, we can’t change someone’s moral fabric.
Q. What’s the contribution of sports science in helping the upcoming generation of Indian athletes?
AS: Right now, we are behind in using sports science and need to do far more to improve in this aspect. Sports science is the need of the hour and once we fully integrate it into our system, better results will follow.