CHENNAI: India’s chief national athletics coach P Radhakrishnan Nair is not a person who would readily agree for an interview. But on a rainy day when he was driven indoors at the JN Stadium in Chennai, he did sit down for a long chat on the sidelines of the Inter-state athletics competition. He spoke about the diminishing returns of the 4x400m men and women teams, how they are in the process of complete overhaul and rebuilding. He has lent his weight behind 400m foreign coach from Jamaican Jason Dawson, who had faced allegations of pushing players too hard. He said there is no tiff between any foreign or Indian coaches and after Dawson wanted to train athletes alone he was not given an assistant coach. The chief coach also said India would be concentrating on their strong events like javelin, long jump, 4×400 men and women relays for the Olympics. Excerpts:

What’s wrong with the 4x400m relay teams (men and women)?

They are already training there in Trivandrum but some of the athletes like Amoj got injured yesterday, then Rajesh Ramesh was also injured. He just rehabilitated and is coming back. Then Vishal was there. I think there are some athletes we expected will do good but they are lagging behind like Rihan Choudhury, Mohit (Kumar).

We were expecting them to give good results during their training in the off-season, but when they started the season, they were not performing well. So, surely it is a new team. There will be hardly anybody from the old group. Ajmal also just joined back after an injury in Saudi Arabia. Definitely they will be good but to win the gold medal at the next Asian Games. That is the expectation.

Similarly, in women’s also Jyotika Dandi, she was one of our best athletes in 400. She also got injured multiple times and now she is fully fit. She may participate at the next Open Nationals. Similarly, Subha Venkatesh, who is one of the most talented 400m athletes but she is having some back pain. But she still clocked 52.67s at the Asian Championships. We have Rupal. She did not participate here. We had a lot of competitions in Spala. Vishal (new national record holder) was also there. He ran four races in Germany for World University and then he ran one in Spala, Poland. Then he ran on 10th August. Then again he ran two races here. So it is eight races in a month from July 20th to August 20th. We have the right  move and decentralisation has developed.

We will choose eight athletes during the Open Nationals. But it is mandatory for them to participate in this championship as well but the final selection will be in the Open Nationals next month.

You had high hopes when you started the season. What happened?

We completely changed the athletes. The expectation was that seniors will be replaced by juniors. But some of the juniors came like Jay Kumar, who has good potential. He ran up to August 10 (international meet). But he wanted to take a rest here. He might be back for Open Nationals, which will be stronger than this. This is a little weak because there is no short term goal here. This is only for the people who participate in World Championships. Hardly 15-16 athletes.

Some of the athletes got injured and could not do well in 4×400. And to qualify for world championships, we have to run 2.58-59 and below. For that, you need a very strong team. At Budapest worlds we had a very strong team. That is why we are not trying to qualify here and have not called overseas teams like Sri Lanka, Maldives. It is better not to waste money.