Say no to national records: Indian Swimming Federation

The Swimming Federation of India (SFI) is an inch closer to landing in hot water for its unrestrained theory, going on for years together. National records determine the performance of a country’s athletes -- the better the national record, the better is the performance exhibited by an athlete. But the swimming federation does not abide by this theory. Instead, for years it has maintained that the national records are only timings recorded at the National championship and rolls out a separate list for athletes with best performances. 

However, it is to be noted that the best performances for the national senior championship are rolled out on the day’s start list, providing only the national meet records. When asked about the best performance list by Indian swimmers, as Sportstar reports, the officials of the federation were taken aback, following which they started updating the records set at the recent junior and senior World Championship. 

In what is a big setback to their careers, Indian swimmers have been left high and dry, owing to poor decision-making of the federation. That star swimmer Sajan Prakash’s impressive 2:05.83 in the 200m medley at Thiruvananthapuram Nationals does not seek a place in the ‘best performances list’ is surprising, while Rehan Poncha’s record of 2:05.89 in 2009, as per the SFI 2019 list, is crowned the best performance in the event.

Tamil Nadu’s AV Jayaveena threw light upon the fact of how the women’s 50m breaststroke record was wrong. “I had done 33.76s at the Khelo India Games in January (in Pune),” said a dejected Jayaveena, while speaking to the Sportstar after bagging a gold in the breaststroke event. The best recorded Indian performance is Priyanka Priyadarshini’s 34.29s in the women’s 50m breaststroke, as per the SFI list.