It is an understatement to say that we live in an age of communication explosion, as the tools and technology have shrunk the world. Yet, the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) has miraculously managed to stay in the stone age.
While the AFI president, Adille Sumariwalla, taunted the media for giving two pages in newspaper for football, despite India’s unflattering rank of “around 150” in the world, and sought good coverage for Indian athletics, the federation has only discouraged the journalists who have sincerely tried to give the best possible coverage to the mother of all sports.
In the ongoing National inter-State championship, it was virtually impossible to get the start lists and results on the opening day. With the media tucked away in a corner, thanks to the demarcated work area with tables and power connection, keeping track of the proceedings on field was a challenging task.
Four pages of matter copied into one page, in absolute small print, made the task more difficult in poor light at night. The detailed results for the field events, was not available for the media despite persistent requests.
To add to the woes, the official website has stopped giving a wealth of details that it used to provide, including live results, which has disappointed the followers of Indian athletics around the world.
To top it all, the inadequate supply of information only resulted in Doordarshan truncating its coverage to the bare minimum on the opening day. How will the Indian athletes shine like stars, if the media is driven away by the overall indifferent attitude of the officials?
There is no doubting the fact that the AFI has been trying to improve the flow of information, but all the efforts are defeated when the officials do not understand the exacting deadlines of the media and come up with a reply that the long jump results had been taken by the unconcerned official to the pole vault arena.
The Competition secretary, Anu Kumar, expressed his helplessness that it was impossible for him to give the output without him getting the inputs in the first place.
Equally, it had to be conceded that the AFI president was mild in his criticism of the media. He had shocked everyone by stating that Indian coaches were capable of guiding the athletes only at the school and college level, and incapable of taking them to medals at the Commonwealth Games, Asian Games and world level meets.
