Indian swimmer Likhit Selvaraj Prema has called upon the International Swimming Federation (FINA) to investigate the conduct of recent Uzbekistan Open Swimming Championships, an Olympic Games qualifying event, in Tashkent. He said the organisers had possibly fudged the times of a couple of events, switching off the giant display board, to suit local athletes.
Likhit, who finished with silver medals in the 50m and 100m Breaststroke events in Tashkent, had recorded his protest against dubious methods by not diving into the water after coming under starters orders in the 200m Breaststroke event. He stood on the starting block for a little over two minutes, got off the block and touched the pad to stop the clock in under a world record time.
“It was quite sad and heart-breaking to see manipulation of times in favour of the local swimmers in some events, leading to wrong times being recorded for the Indian swimmers as well,” he said in a video uploaded on YouTube on Wednesday, pointing out that the 100m Freestyle heats on the opening day and the 100m Butterfly heats on the final day needed to be looked at by FINA.
He uploaded a video of Sajan Prakash winning the 100m Butterfly heats against Uzbekistan’s swimmers in a little over 54 seconds, but the results sheet credited a Tashkent swimmer, Aleksey Tarasenko, with a time of 52.02 seconds and the Indian with a National Record of 52.74, both being Olympic Selection Time (B Standard). Sajan Prakash’s best is 53.46 clocked in 2018.
In fact, the other Indian swimmer in the event D Adithya, who had clocked 56.43 in the Karnataka State Championships in early March, was credited with a flattering time of 53.45 seconds, also matching the B Standard for Olympic qualification. “The times of top 8 swimmers were manipulated,” Likith said
In fact, he pointed out that the swimmingworldmagazine.com had cited a report on the Uzbekistan Swimming Federation website as saying that two swimmers – Adylbek Yusupbaev (51.71) and Eldor Usmonov (51.83) had fulfilled the A standard (51.96) for the Tokyo Olympics while Oybek Khojaev (53.52) had met the B standard. The Uzbeks appear to claim that these times were obtained in trials after the morning heats were completed.
FINA will find it hard to accept these times not secured in a approved competition. “Standard entry times can only be achieved in competitions approved for that purpose by FINA during the qualification period from 1st March 2019 to 27th June 2021,” FINA says in the document laying down the qualification process for the Tokyo Olympic Games.
“Sajan beat the Uzbeks in the final with a beautiful swim, clocking 53.69 seconds,” Likhit said, showing a video in which the camera quickly panned from the finish to the blank display board at the other end of the pool.
“It was not a display of good sportsmanship and not motivating me at all in any way. Seeing all this didn’t make me want to swim the 200 Breaststroke final. I froze on the blocks for 2 minutes and 5 seconds. I came down and touched the touchpad and asked the officials if it was the new world record for 200m Breaststroke to show them that what they were doing was wrong,” he said.
Likhit claimed that the local officials told him that he did not understand the politics of it all and that they had to send 10 Uzbek swimmers to the Olympic Games with A Standard (Olympic Qualifying Times). He also alleged that the officials first sought to bribe him to stay quiet and then wanted him to write a letter saying that he was mentally unstable and had gone deaf at the start of the 200m Breaststroke.
It is important that FINA takes this case up, even if it has to do it so suo motu, so that the sport’s reputation is not dented. Likhit may have put his career on the line with his show of spine, taking care to back his claims with evidence that prima facie suggest that he is speaking up for the sport that he so loved.
It remains to be seen what the coaches and officials who accompanied the 13 Indian swimmers to Tashkent have to say to the Swimming Federation of India before it is in a position take the issue up with FINA. But the videos and results sheets uploaded by Likhit in his startling YouTube presentation are quite indicative that he is not wasting anyone’s time.
Here is the YouTube video that Likhit has posted.
