There are many things the city of Rajkot is famous for — namely its rich cultural heritage, the exacting summer, association with Mahatma Gandhi and of course Cricket. The city has two world-class cricket stadiums where teams from all over the world have come and played matches.
If there is one thing that the city is not famous for — it is Swimming. The swimming pools in the city cannot be certainly counted as top-notch and there are not many swimmers from the city who have set or broken national records. And still for some odd reason — the Swimming Federation of India (SFI) seems to have developed a fascination for the city. Why else, would the city be host to two national aquatic championships in a matter of three years?
Yet, the 38th Sub-Junior National Aquatic Championships 2022 that were organised in the city of Rajkot, would be remembered not just for the swimming prowess of the young swimmers (11 & 12-year-olds) but also for the weary and shabby organisation of the meet. The swimmers who had gathered from different parts of the country, after a gruelling selection process in their respective states, were in for a rude shock at how the competition ran its course over three days. It was almost as if Murphy had decided that all aspects of its law should be tested out — thus, everything that could go wrong was — indeed going wrong.
To give an idea on what really went wrong — here’s are some pointers from ground-zero
Extreme weather
Anyone who knows anything about Rajkot – would immediately vouch for the fact that organising an outdoor meet in June is not such a great idea. The month of June happens to be the hottest and the humidity-est in Rajkot, with the average day temperature feeling like 40°C+ if not clocking it. The event was conducted in two slots — the morning session (from 8 AM) & the evening session (from 4 PM), including the warm-up time. This meant that the young swimmers were being roasted under the sun — even as they went about competing in the races. And if that was not all, there was an elaborate opening ceremony on the first day of the competition, where these young swimmers were made to stand and listen to “inspiring” speeches from the guests — as they waited to participate in the finals. Not surprisingly many swimmers were feeling unwell and suffering from heat-stroke-like symptoms at the meet. The only saviour was a coconut-water vendor right outside the Sardar Vallabhbhai Swimming Pool, cutting and passing coconuts to desperate parents and famished swimmers.
The fact that Rajkot would be so hot — is not a surprise. And yet, the administrators decided to stick with it, knowing fully well that the young children would be sorely inconvenienced is something that can not be fathomed.
Ill-thought Scheduling
Typically in a national meet, there will be multiple age groups which will have their events scheduled throughout the day. This means multiple heats — and this more importantly means spacing between the events. Swimmers who appear for multiple events in a day, get a breather.
But not so this time. For the first time, the Sub-Juniors had only one group event, namely group 3. With all the events of the same age group, swimmers who had to appear for multiple events had to swim back-to-back without any break. This put a great amount of stress on the swimmers.
The justification given by the organisers was that the event schedule had been shared a few months back, so the swimmers should have either been prepared or should have chosen the events accordingly. This is a baseless idea, swimmers don’t choose events based on the schedule of the competition, but rather based on which event they feel comfortable with or are good at. So, a swimmer might be an explosive freestyler in 50 Mts, but won’t be able to compete in 400 Mts or 1500 Mts.
The schedule of an event of such dimension has to be created keeping in mind that there will be many swimmers who would be appearing in multiple events and they would need a breather in between. The only swimmers who can cope with such continuous events are experienced and often older swimmers. Group 3 swimmers are just at the start of their journey, how could it be expected out of them.
No Swim-down
One of the big issues that competitive swimmers are to deal with is the build-up of lactic acid in their bloodstream. Swimming is an extremely taxing sport, wherein the swimmers need to generate an enormous amount of power in extremely short time-frames, 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, etc.
The lactate buildup can cause fatigue, muscle soreness and stiffness which needs to be cleared before the swimmer is ready for the next event.
No wonder, even the most elite of swimmers have a “Swim down” set post each event.
But not so at the 38th Sub-Junior Nationals. There was no pool available for the swimmers to do a swim-down. There is a smaller diving pool, but a diving competition was running concurrently so the swimmers could not use it. There was one small oddly shaped kid pool, where the water was so dirty that dead ants and insects were floating in it. Still, the swimmers had no option but to try to cool down in this murky pool itself.
At the managers’ meeting before the event, some team managers had raised the same issue with the SFI management, there was even a suggestion to reserve the two side lanes of the main pool for the swim-down, or have longer breaks between the events. But all such concerns and solutions were resolutely shot down by the management, as it raced ahead with the event.
Technological challenges
To compound all the issues, there were other challenges galore. The diving blocks at the pool (especially on one side of the pool) were archaic. The display board was not functioning properly (the timings for the second-place were not being displayed) and worst of all, there were no backstroke wedges made available to the swimmers. Backstroke wedges these days are considered standard equipment and are available even at local meets. What was the reason that the organisers decided not to offer them at the competition is something beyond common reasoning.
The only thing that the organisers were fastidious about at the event was the SFI UID number, which they were checking all the time and enforcing parents to cough up the renewal fees for the swimmers to pay.
Don’t get me wrong, Rajkot is a nice place, the people are very helpful and welcoming, and the food (especially the vegetarian variety) is very nice. There are a lot of places to enjoy and have fun in the city.
But when it comes to a national-level aquatic championship — certainly, the city is not best suited for that — especially in the dire manner, the organisers have done so.