Bengaluru: First, she tarnished the reputation of her country’s Athletics Federation by raising grave allegations against it.. Now, she is all praise for it and put the blame on her long time coach. Malayali athlete O P Jaisha has told the media that she had never alleged that the Athletic Federation of India failed to provide her drinking water to her during the course of her Marathon race at Rio Olympics.
Jaisha told the media that the Federation was ready to spend crores for the athletes.
Jaisha who put up a pitiable performance at the Olympics
finished a poor 89th, clocking 2 hours, 47 minutes and 19 seconds. It is slower than her personal best of 2:34.43 at last year’s world championships in Beijing.
The modification of her earlier allegation against the Federation came after the Federation and marathoner kavita Raut, another participant, refuted her claims with point by point.
Jaisha, 33, has now blamed her long-time coach Dr Nikolai Snesarev from Belarus for her poor show. She has also said that she would quit marathon and instead focus on 1500 metre race.
Excerpts from the Statement by Athletics Federation of India
The Athletics Federation of India is extremely disturbed to see a section of the media carry inaccurate and misleading information regarding our athlete, Ms. O.P. Jaisha without verification of facts.
The AFI vouches that the arrangement for the marathon race organised by the OC 2016 Rio Olympic Games was commendable and as per the rules and regulations pertaining to conduct of a marathon race. As per the prevailing rules and regulations, the organisers installed one water point per every 2.5km and one refreshment booth per every 2.5km. The quantity of drinks was enough and the Rio organisers did a wonderful job on this front as per requirement for a marathon race.
In addition, the organisers installed one medical booth per every 5km on the marathon course, and two ambulances accompanied the runners – one ahead and one behind the group of marathoners. This was also organised in Rio as per the rules and regulations and there was no reason to complain.
As far as the planning of the team management for the race is concerned, each team is allowed to keep their own personalised drinks on the booths, marked in a colour as per the choice of the team and athlete. Accordingly, as per the rule, on the night ahead of the women’s marathon race, the Indian Team Manager carried 16 empty bottles, eight each for Jaisha and the other Indian women runner, Kavita Raut, and visited the duo and their coach, foreign expert Dr Nikolai Snesarev in their room and asked them to provide their choice of personalised drink which would then be sealed in their presence and handed over to the organisers for installing them on the booth along with a placard as per the requirement of the athlete.
In this case, the two athletes, Ms Jaisha and Ms Raut declined the offer and informed the Indian Team Manager that they didn’t require personalised drink, and if at all they required it during the race, they would use the drinks available at the water booth and refreshment booth provided by the organisers. It is also informed that as per the rule an athlete stands to be disqualified if he or she accepts a drink from any other person or official standing along the course except taken on their own – be it personalised drink submitted to the organisers in advance or the drinks provided by the organisers on the water and refreshment booths respectively.
Therefore, it is an incorrect statement made by Ms O.P. Jaisha that the Indian officials accompanying the team did not provide her water or any other form of tonic drinks.
Also, as per the information shared by the organisers an ambulance would be made available within two minutes in the eventuality of an athlete fainting. The Rio organisers acted swiftly and provided an ambulance within two minutes after Ms Jaisha had fainted and within no time the Indian team manager and deputy chief coach of the Indian athletics team accompanied her to the hospital. In fact Dr Nikolai Snesarev out of concern for Ms Jaisha’s health and safety even got into an altercation with a lady from the organising committee and faced time in a lock up for this purpose.
Further, it is also informed that Ms Jaisha had declined to use personalised drink in another event, the 2015 World Championships held in Beijing and the coach informed the Indian team management that she wasn’t in the habit of using personalised drinks. It is also being informed that in the case of the three Indian men marathon runners, their coach Surender Singh had requested for personalised drinks for the three runners and the same was provided to them as per their requirement. It is also to be noted that the temperature was 18 degree Celsius when the women’s marathon had started and went on to reach 26 degree Celsius when the race concluded.
The AFI would also like to inform that Ms Jaisha had qualified only for the marathon event for Rio 2016 Olympic Games, and hence she was not eligible to run in the 1500m race as claimed in her interview. This information is also incorrect and misleading.
