Cleaning up murky waters ...

Many professional sportspersons in India are not aware of what constitutes doping. In the Indian context, where the blind are leading the blind, the average sportsperson is walking a thin line between glory and disgrace.

The price that the country, the sport and all those who have worked hard towards supporting the sportsperson have to pay for the ignorance that exists in the system is enormous. I would believe that this should be an automatic eye opener and work as a catalyst towards creating more awareness in the sporting community.

The oft seen scenario is that sportspersons caught in random in- and out-of-competition dope tests escapes lightly with the excuse that they took a particular medicine out of ignorance to cure an illness. If enough awareness is created there would be no question of leniency towards someone who fails a dope test.

The process of bringing about awareness in India would face two big challenges: first – lack of formal education among the majority of sportspersons and the support staff, and second – language, as information is available only in English. WADA should also look at how they can make things simpler; in its current form the matter is complex and difficult to understand.

One possible solution could be to make the pharma companies clearly indicate on the packaging if any of the ingredients in the medication are on WADA’s prohibited list.

Till we have a robust structure in place to assist the sportsperson, the onus lies squarely on the sportsperson's shoulder to ensure that everything entering their body is legal and they continue living on a prayer …

The links below are extremely important and I would encourage all sportspersons to take time out and read it:

Click here to access the WADA website.

Click here for the Prohibited List.

Click here for the Athletes Guide.

Click here for Q&A’s on Therapeutic Use Exemption.

Click here for the Doping Control Leaflet.

Click here for Q&A’s on Athletes and Medication.

Time Conversion LCM<->SCM

I am sure there are many out there trying to figure how the times in a short course pool can be converted to times in a long course pool …

Well, I too have been trying to do the same and have found the following answer on the USA Swimming website (Click here for all the details):

Keeping the Indian swimming scene in mind I have picked only the conversion ratios for Long Course meters (LCM) to Short Course meters (SCM) and vice versa.

Click here to access one of the online conversion tools.

Asian Indoor Games in a few pictures

Click here for all the swimming pictures from the Asian Indoor Games.

Asian Indoor Games – Day 4

The Indian swimmers were not able to finish the meet the way it started. Only one final, 100m Individual Medley, featured Indian swimmers – Shikha Tandon and Richa Mishra.

Overall India had a good meet finishing with two silver medals. This was slightly better than the last edition where India won one silver medal (Arjun Muralidharan in the 200m Butterfly) and one bronze medal (Shikha Tandon in the 100m Backstroke). Sandeep Sejwal was the star of meet winning both the silver medals.

The results:

100m Individual Medley (Women) – Hong Kong’s Hiu Wai Sherry Tsai won her fourth gold medal with a new record time of 1:02.49. Hong Kong’s Hang Yu Sze won the silver with a time of 1:04.02. Thailand’s Natthanan Junkrajang won the bronze with a time of 1:04.86

Shikha Tandon finished a creditable 5^th with a time of 1:06.71 and Richa Mishra finished 7^th with a time of 1:08.02.

The World Record is in the name of Natalie Coughlin of USA with a time of 58.80 set in 2002.

100m Individual Medley (Men) – Thailand’s Radomyos Matjiur made it a double by winning in a new record time of 55.61. Chinese Taipei’s Wei Wen Wang and Kazakhstan’s Artur Dilman tied for place second with time of 57.04.

Rehan Poncha clocked 58.72 in the heats and was placed 10^th overall.

The World Record is in the name of Ryk Neethling of South Africa with a time of 51.52 set in 2005.

100m Freestyle (Women) – Hong Kong’s Hannah Jane Arnett Wilson won her second gold with a new record time of 55.17. Korea’s Jae Young Lee won the silver with a time of 55.79. China’s Binan Wu won the bronze with a time of 56.98.

Shikha Tandon narrowly missed making it to the finals, finishing 9^th, with a time of 1:00.36.

The World Record is in the name of Lisbeth Lenton of Australia with a time of 51.70 set in 2005.

100m Freestyle (Men) – China’s Yu Liu finished first with a new record time of 49.79. Kyrgyzstan’s Vasilii Danilov finished second with a time of 49.98. Kazakhstan’s Alexandr Sklyar finished third with a time of 50.16.

The World Record is in the name of Roland Schoeman of South Africa with a time of 46.25 set in 2005.

50m Breaststroke (Women) – Korea’s Suyoung Lim made it a double by winning with a new record time of 32.22. China’s Jingwen Tan came in second with a time of 32.37. Hong Kong’s Ka Yi Suen came in third with a time of 32.84.

The World Record is in the name of Jade Edmistone of Australia with a time of 29.90 set in 2004.

Note: All timings have been clocked in a Short course pool.

Asian Indoor Games – Rehan does well on Day 3

Rehan Poncha, who has been swimming well in this meet, stood out among the Indian swimmers on Day 3. He was seeded second after the heats but ultimately finished a creditable 4^th in the 100m Backstroke final. He missed the bronze by 0.35 of a second.

The results:

50m Butterfly (Women) – Hong Kong’s Hang Yu Sze and Hannah Jane Arnett Wilson finished first and second with a time of 27.16 and 27.41 respectively, both the times were better than the previous record. Korea’s Hyun Jung Park finished third with a time of 28.15.

The World Record is in the name of Anna-Karin Kammerling of Sweden with a time of 25.33.

50m Butterfly (Men) – China’s Jiawei Zhou came in first with a new record time of 23.97. Kazakhstan’s Rustam Khudiyev came in second with a time of 24.12. Macau’s Ming Cheung Victor Wong came in third with a time of 24.14.

The World Record is in the name of Kaio Almeida of Brazil with a time of 22.60.

200m Freestyle (Women) – Thailand’s Natthanan Junkrajang won the gold with a time of 2:01.31. Korea’s Jae Young Lee won the silver with a time of 2:01.61. Hong Kong’s Jennifer Ka Hang Town won the bronze with a time of 2:05.50.

Richa Mishra swam a time of 2:10.87 in the heats.

The meet record is in the name of Chin Kuei Yang of Chinese Taipei with at time of 2:00.44 set in 2005.

The World Record is in the name of Lisbeth Lenton of Australia with a time of 1:53.30 set in 2005.

200m Freestyle (Men) – China’s Runliang Liu touched first with a time of 1:49.88. Kazakhstan’s Oleg Rabota touched second with a time of 1:50.21. Korea’s Junho Hwang touched third with a time of 1:50.72.

Rehan finished 10^th in this event with a time of 1:54.89 in the heats.

The meet record is in the name of Vitaliy Khan of Kazakhstan with a time of 1:49.57 set in 2005.

The World Record is in the name of Ian Thorpe of Australia with a time of 1:41.10 set in 2000.

100m Backstroke (Women) – Hong Kong’s Hiu Wai Sherry Tsai and Hoi Shun Stephanie Au won the gold and silver with a time of 1:00.18 and 1:01.39 respectively. China’s Xiujun Chen won the bronze with a time of 1:01.90. All the three bettered the previous record.

Shikha Tandon finished 7^th with a time of 1:06.54.

The World Record is in the name of Natalie Coughlin of USA with a time of 56.51 set in 2007.

100m Backstroke (Men) – Kazakhstan’s Stanislav Ossinskiy came first with a time of 55.30. China’s Yi Lin came second with a time of 56.00. Hong Kong’s Geoffrey Robin Cheah came third with a time of 56.10.

Rehan Poncha came in 4^th with a time of 56.45.

The meet record is in the name of Stanislav Ossinskiy of Kazakhstan with a time of 54.81 set in 2005.

The World Record is in the name of Ryan Lochte of USA with a time of 49.99 set in 2006.

Day 4 Preview:

Look out for Shikha Tandon – 100m Individual Medley and 100m Freestyle, Richa Mishra – 100m Individual Medley and Rehan Poncha – 100m Individual Medley.

Note: All timings have been clocked in a Short course pool.