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V Krishnaswamy
Bangkok, Dec 9: A team of five with two coaches, including a foreign specialist. The right composition for a champion team and that's what the women's weightlifting squad was supposed to be.
It is anything but that, with divided camps and two coaches who don't see eye to eye.
Pal Singh Sandhu, the official chief national coach of the Indian women's team and the Bulgarian coach, Trendafil Stoytchev, who has been paid $1,500 a month plus accommodation for almost a year now, are in-charge of the lifters.
The two coaches, who have been in Patiala with the girls for most of the year, would be expected to sit together and be with the competitors as they prepare for a major event. But on Wednesday, when the 22-year-old Pratima Kumari finished last, neither coach was willing to take the responsibility.
``You ask the Bulgarian coach about her. He is in-charge,'' said Sandhu, when asked about Pratima who is a national champion.
The Bulgarian coach, when asked about Pratima, shook his head as if to say,``I don't know.'' But when asked about Kunjarani, he said, ``I don't know. Ask Pal Singh, he is her coach.''
Obviously, the coaches have divided the trainees, for that may also help them to take only half the blame for any failures. On Pratima, who failed, Sandhu who, the other day claimed there are less than 100 registered women lifters in the country, added, ``She should never have been brought here. She failed in the World Championships in Chiang Mai last year and then in the Asians in China this July and now this (failing all three attempts in snatch and lifting a poor 105 kg in jerk).'' But then, he could have done something about it, being the national coach? No answer.
``I don't know what happened. Maybe she (Pratima) was weak in her psyche,'' said Stoytchev, in broken English and probably meaning her mental preparation. Maybe tomorrow we will win something with Malleshwari,'' he said. ``It depends on God.''
Sources say the two coaches have never got along from the day Stoytchev arrived. TheBulgarian disagrees with the kind of training Pal Singh has being putting the girls through. The disagreement reached such a point where the federation is believed to have asked the coaches to take on few trainees each. Stoytchev was one of the five foreign coaches who had written to the sports ministry complaining about poor selections.
As for training methods, Stoytchev is believed to have asked the federation not to have the camp in Patiala and shift it to a place with cooler temperatures during summer. But Pal Singh is believed to have wanted the camp to be in Patiala, where he claimed the gym facilities and food were better. Also, his belief is that the lifters must get used to extreme conditions.
On diet too, there were problems. Stoytchev had suggested beef, but since that is difficult in Indian conditions, he had suggested fish among others things. The officials in Patiala pleaded that it was not possible to procure good fish in Patiala and only about four weeks before the team left for Bangkokwas fish included in the diet, which, till then, was eggs in morning, chicken in afternoon and chicken in the night.
So a combination of coaches, who do not get along, poorly planned camps and wrong peaking have contributed to what is going to be yet another disastrous campaign for India.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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