Conspiracy had led to walkers' disqualification: India's chief race walking coach

NEW DELHI: India's chief race walking coach,

Alexander Artsybashev

, whose job is on the line following the disqualification of the country's premier four race walkers at the Asian Games, has tried to make a case for himself by hinting at a possible conspiracy against India by the judges officiating at the event.


The Russian expert has alleged that "walking is the most corrupt event in athletics and the sad thing is there is no way to prove that the judge was wrong". Artsybashev has said this in the official report - on Indian race walkers' "deplorable" show at the Asiad - submitted by to the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) and the Sports Authority of India (SAI).

In the one-page report, accessed by TOI, the coach says that while K T Irfan's disqualification in the 20km race walk was "illogical and implausible". The others, namely Soumiya B and Sandeep Kumar, were disqualified due to the "actual violation of walking technique". Manish Rawat, too, received warnings on the 4, 6, and 8km stretch and was eventually disqualified in the first 12km half of the race.

Only 20km race walker

Khushbir Kaur

managed to complete the race and finished fourth.

In his report, mentioning about Irfan's disqualification, Artsybashev wrote, "He was disqualified on 12-13km of 20km race. According to him, he felt excellent, was in the leading group in the 4th position. He received all three warnings on the same sixth lap of the distance. This is not logical and implausible. It brings to mind that this has been pre-planned in advance to remove all Indian men's race walkers. It's a true reality which goes back for years and years."

The coach's strange argument doesn't hold much ground in the light of race walkers' embarrassing outing at the Asiad. The disqualifications point more towards a technical failure rather than a conspiracy.

AFI secretary general C K Valson went on to say, "Artsybashev should come up with a better excuse next time". "Whenever there is a disqualification, he always tries to blame someone for it. Walking is an event where disqualifications happen. But you can't expect everyone from the team to get disqualified. We cannot blame the judges for our poor show," Valson reasoned.

"There are three different judges officiating at a race walking event. There is a rule which says you cannot have more than one judge from the same country. So, how do you say there was a conspiracy? Why don't you come up with the same excuse when winning? It's a laughable explanation from him," Valson told TOI. Interestingly, Artsybashev had used the same excuse for India's poor performance at the CWG and 2017 IAAF World Championships in London as well.