Mumbai: A week ago, Sawan Barwal managed to end a wait in Indian athletics that had lasted nearly half a century. The fall of the oldest national record brought a moment of cheer, and perhaps some reflection too.
It was not just that the late Shivnath Singh’s marathon mark (2:12:00) had gone unchallenged for 48 years, but Barwal’s timing of 2:11:58—as creditable as it is in his personal journey and the country’s current marathon scene—is a fair way away from even the Asia benchmark (2:04:43). The world record is almost sub two hours (2:00:35).
Stacking up the national records (NR) to Asian (AR) and world records (WR) across a range of events presents a similar picture. In a lot of them the gap is wide, in some it is relatively closer (see box).
As India harbours ambitions to host the Olympics, where athletics along with swimming offers the biggest chunk of medals, the focus, coaches concur, should be on strengthening events in which the gulf isn’t too wide. In those where it is, going to the grassroots with elite coaches to identify and develop event-specific, zone-wise talent could help bridge the gap in the long run.
“We need a paradigm shift in our approach,” Robert Bobby George, former India triple jumper and Dronacharya awardee coach, said. “Things are improving, but not in the desired way.”
Over the last decade, national marks in some events in men and women have moved closer to the AR—jumps, relays, 400m, 5,000-10,000m, and, of course, the Neeraj Chopra-inspired javelin throw.
“We’ve had good results in jumps, in 5,000-10,000m with someone like Gulveer Singh and a few youngsters coming up, and we’re seeing a lot of 80m-plus throwers in javelin after Neeraj did it,” said Surinder Singh Bhandari, India’s top distance runner turned coach. “Once the plateau is breached, it has a domino effect.”
That effect, however, hasn’t taken shape in some promising events in the recent past, for varied reasons.
The traditionally stronger 400m has weakened. Jeswin Aldrin’s 2023 men’s long jump NR of 8.42m came during a phase of collective buzz in jumps that has since lost steam. India’s AR-breaking 4x400m men’s relay run at the 2023 Budapest Worlds was followed by a dramatic dip in the event.
“In 400m, we don’t have the kind of girls we had in the early 2000s. In relay, we don’t have a strong collective group. Overall, these athletes are not as consistent as compared to earlier,” said George, who coached his long jumper wife Anju Bobby, whose 2004 long jump NR still stands.
A common theme across these events not sustaining momentum is the lack of a conveyor belt.
“With the 4×100 (men), we’ve got the best group of young sprinters. We must take advantage of that. The 400 boys were a good group as well. They maximised that, but then it sort of ran its course,” said James Hillier, athletics director at Reliance Foundation. “The need is to have some sort of a sustainable system.”
The system, reckoned George, would be better served with elite coaches working at grassroots level, and not only after budding athletes enter the system. Tapping talent early is one thing, teaching them the right way at that early age is quite another. It’s an area with scope for major improvement and where little steps to reduce the yawning NR-AR-WR gap in other events could be made.
“The conditioning of an athlete at the beginning years is key, especially in facets like muscle and power symmetry, strength, nutrition, etc. Otherwise, injuries are inevitable. It’s not the athlete’s fault because the system is not able to accommodate them at the early stages,” said George, a former Sports Authority of India coach who runs his academy in Bengaluru now.
Two of India’s most promising young women athletes, 100m hurdler Jyothi Yarraji, coached by Hillier, and long jumper Shaili Singh, coached by George, have been hindered by frequent injuries.
“We don’t have elite coaches at the grassroots level who can teach the right methods. Kids thus develop bad postures, wrong running and jumping styles. And once you start correcting them, chances of injuries increase,” said Bhandari. “Today, we have access to a lot in terms of sports science, but it has to be utilised properly.”
“We need a holistic program from top to bottom with more intellect in coaching and internal R&D,” said George. “National camps are the only programme we have. Khelo India started with a lot of promise, but is not building that kind of momentum.
Corporates like Reliance and JSW have helped, but their main focus is at the top level. It’s not easy, but we need to build a strong base.”
In that base, the hunt for young talent could be event- and pocket-specific. “We have to target pockets specific to events – sprinters largely come from coastal areas like Kerala and Tamil Nadu, throwers from places like Punjab and Haryana due to their raw power, long and middle distance runners from, say, Maharashtra and Uttarakhand,” said Bhandari.
Discussions have been held to scout talent and develop training hubs along those lines, Bhandari, who is with SAI Bengaluru, said.
That’s from a larger picture lens for India, hosts of the 2030 Commonwealth Games and aspiring hosts of the 2036 Olympics. The more immediate focus could be on events where scaling the NR-AR divide is more realistic.
“In certain events, we are not there,” said George. “But in some events like jumps, Indians have the potential to be world class. We have to develop that.”
