Ever since it was announced that the Tokyo Olympics was to be postponed by a year, the obvious question on everyone’s mind was what happens to the qualification process.
The International Olympics Committee was quick to announce that the quotas that have already been decided will stand and the process will be tweaked by respective federations in accordance to their original qualification system.
So far so good for the Indians who have already made the cut. But the Indian shooting contingent was still in a fix as unlike wrestling or boxing, the two other prominent sports where the quota belongs to the country, the National Rifle Association of India has put in place an elaborate selection procedure to pick the Indian contingent for the Games. India have earned 15 quotas for the Tokyo Games and the NRAI were clearing looking for a couple of medals from the shooters.
This is precisely why all the quota winners had participated in the last selection trials in New Delhi in the third week of March despite the State government giving clear directives to close down malls, ban public gathering and not hold any sporting events.
But the ensuing selection committee meeting was postponed and once the Games were pushed to July 2021 there seemed to be no hurry to announce the team. However, the shooters who were all but assured a slot in the Tokyo bound squad had been anxiously waiting for a clearer picture on whether NRAI would come up with new selection criteria or announce the team soon and had even been pushing for the team to be announced soon.
They would have heaved a sigh of relief on Wednesday when NRAI president Raninder Singh finally told The Tribune newspaper that the Olympic squad is likely to be announced within a month irrespective of the lockdown announced due to the coronavirus pandemic being lifted.
Singh made it clear that he had told the coaches to think of the worst-case scenario and work out a plan for training the athletes for the Tokyo Games and his team selection announcement also seems to stem from the same logic that the country’s top shooters should feel assured in the current scenario.
“It is certain that we will not get any tournaments in the near future. If I am optimistic, then we may get something after January. We must take stock of the situation and prepare accordingly. We must be prepared for everything,” he told the paper.
But there are not many takers for this idea. India’s only individual Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra in a chat with Sportstar has already insisted on a new selection policy to ensure that India sends the best contingent to Tokyo next year.
“It may not help to announce the team, and hope that they all would be in prime form when the Olympics comes around. A year is a long time, especially in a sport like shooting,” said the former World and Olympic champion.
But what about giving some clarity to the top shooters. “There can be an argument both ways. There can be no ideal policy. You can’t make everyone happy. There is that element of the unknown. The nature of the sport is such that it can cut either way,” he had said.
Despite accounting for the disappointment of the current top shooters, what Bindra said makes the most sense.
One must remember that NRAI did not opt for sending the quota winner to Olympics like wrestling and boxing because they wanted to send only the in-form players to the Games. This hasn’t always worked out well as we noticed in the 2016 Rio Olympics but once they had decided on the system they want to follow, they need to stick to the same for Tokyo Olympics.
The Games are over a year away and one really doesn’t know how every athlete would handle the lockdown period physically and emotionally and whether they would be at their best when competitions begin.
The air rifle/pistol shooters would probably have personal ranges at their respective homes and may continue to train but that isn’t going to be the case with other shooters. Also, most of them have worked towards peaking in July-August 2020 and that would have taken a definite toll on them physically and emotionally. It remains to be seen if they can maintain the same level for another year.
The NRAI’s present selection policy has provisions for reserved players and one argument can be that if the federation can always replace the selected player if the said shooter isn’t at the same level.
But then the better option would have been to tweak the selection policy in a way that the performances on the basis of which the team was to be selected for 2020 Games would continue to get enough weightage while the players would still have to show consistency to make the cut next year.
Announcing the names and then putting them under scrutiny without a defined policy could lead to a lot of questions on the fairness of the process.
Like Bindra said, there is no ideal policy in current situation.
The decision to announce the team early could give the required assurance to the top shooters to focus their minds on the Games next year or make them complacent. It may also dissuade the reserves and the potential challengers for the Olympic spots from pushing themselves in this difficult period.
The shooters, favourites and the challengers, definitely require clarity on what are their chances of making it to Tokyo. But announcing the team early may not be the best among the available options.