UID cards to thwart athletics cheats

Vinayak Padmadeo
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 14

The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) has had enough of athletes trying to beat the system by getting someone to impersonate them, and it has embraced technology to beat the cheats.

AFI has started to hand out Unique Identification (UID) numbers to all its registered athletes. This number will be connected to their UID card, which will have all the vital details of the athlete, including date of birth. AFI has already registered over 10,000 athletes.

“There have been incidents in the past when an athlete was caught trying to stand in for someone else, or sent entries under different names. With the UID, they won’t be able to do this at all,” said Devesh Bhal, AFI’s manager (Operations & Communications).

Anju Bobby George, India’s only track and field World Championships medallist, had sent a written complaint to AFI after she caught an athlete’s older brother running for his sibling at the National Youth Athletics Championships in Hyderabad.

“I caught two brothers. One was in the Army and was entered for the competition in the National Championships. He did not run but his older brother did. I wrote a complaint but nothing came of it,” Anju said last month on the sidelines of AFI’s AGM. AFI could not act on that particular complaint due to the lack of video footage.“The new system will flag us if any of the registered athletes tries to enter under a different name,” Bhal said. “He or she can change names but will not be able to change the details of either the Aadhar card or any other ID that he/she had entered online to get the UID.”

No UID, no entry

The Inter-State Championships held in Lucknow was the first competition in which only athletes with UIDs were allowed to participate.

AFI intends to link details of an athlete’s identity with a UID card. “It may take a couple of months to link all the details to a card as the process is underway. But as a rule only athletes who have UID numbers will be allowed to participate in our championships,” Bhal said. “We have already applied it at zonal level. In time all championships, including the state events, will be held with UIDs.”