Indian athletes' preparations set to suffer as World Athletics puts Turkey on Competition Manipulation Watch List

The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) will have to rejig its plans for the country's athletes owing to a major decision by World Athletics - the global governing body of the sports.

The governing body of the sports has designated Turkey as having a 'high degree of risk of results manipulation within the member federation’s territory'.

During its meeting held in July, the World Athletics Council decided not to recognize the results achieved at the competitions hosted by seven member federations, including Turkey. The only exception was the official international or area championships. The conditions came into effect from September 23.

“Seven Member Federations have been placed on the new Competition Manipulation Watch List following an investigation of suspicious competition results conducted by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU),” the World Athletics said in a statement on Friday.

The seven Member Federations are Albania, Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Turkey and Uzbekistan.

Turkey has been the favorite destination of Indian athletes during off-season and pre-season for the past several years.

In the build-up to major international meetings, including the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, Indian athletes, particularly the men's and women’s 4x400m relay teams, competed on Turkish soil to improve their global rankings and achieve the Olympic qualification mark.

“The integrity of our sport is our highest priority at World Athletics. Without it, we don’t have a sport. That is why we established the independent AIU, to identify and address all threats to integrity,” Sebastian Coe, president of World Athletics, said.

“Maintaining integrity requires eternal vigilance, and this is a timely reminder that all our Member Federations must be equally committed to upholding the principles of fair competition.”

The performances of elite Indian athletes, including star sprinter Dutee Chand and long jumper Ankit Sharma, achieved in Kazakhstan to qualify for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games were also under the scanner. Neither Dutee nor Sharma repeated their Kazakhstan performances in Rio.

Even during the 2020 Olympic qualification period, in domestic competitions, there were speculations of manipulation as some of the athletes who qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics failed to repeat their home performances at the Olympic Games.

The Council approved the introduction of a Competition Manipulation Watch List at its meeting in Oregon in July. This was in response to an AIU investigation prompted by 17 reports of suspicious competition results during the qualification period for the 2021 Olympic Games.

The apex governing body for athletics also reserves the right to appoint up to three international technical officials to ensure competitions are conducted appropriately in the seven nations under the AIU scanner.

World Athletics acts against age manipulation also

The governing body of global athletics has also taken action to annul the results of 11 athletes from World Athletics Series events between 2001 and 2013 due to age manipulation.

“These historic cases were referred to World Athletics by the AIU following its investigations into the birth dates of these competitors. This has resulted in the concerned athletes being stripped of results, and in some cases, medals being reallocated,” the World Athletics said in a press release.

Nine athletes have been identified by the AIU as having been over-age at the time of the championships in which they competed, and two athletes have been identified as under-age.

The investigations have led to the reallocation of medals in the events, including men’s 110m hurdles at the 2002 World Junior Championships. China’s Shi Dongpeng was disqualified, while Shamar Sands of the Bahamas was awarded the silver medal and Richard Phillips of Jamaica bronze medal.