Athletes choking on Delhi air

Sabi Hussain

New Delhi, April 29

The Indian athletes complaining about poor food supplements, lack of training facilities and the abysmal living conditions in national camps is commonplace. At the Federation Cup Championship, which is also an Olympics qualifier event, the track and field athletes are voicing an unusual concern — the pollution levels in Delhi. 

The presence of Particulate Matter (PM) at high levels around the Jawahar Lal Nehru (JLN) Stadium, coupled with the poorly-maintained warm-up tracks, has resulted in the athletes complaining of cough, dyspnoea and nausea. 

On Friday, the RK Puram Air Quality Monitoring Station recorded the PM level at 196 µg/m3 as against the acceptable 100 µg/m3. The air quality index in the JLN area has been fluctuating from 'poor' to 'very poor' in the last two days. The high level of dust particles on the stadium's synthetic track has made matters worse for the athletes; Delhi's hot and humid weather has affected their overall performance at the meet. 

Before reaching here, the athletes weren't aware about the poor maintenance of the track. It was only when they landed here that they came to know about it. Most of the athletes The Tribune spoke to blamed the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and the JLN administration for not maintaining the track. A few others blamed the athletics federation for hosting the meet in Delhi despite knowing about the pollution levels and the poor maintenance of the stadium. 

“After landing in Delhi, I have been coughing. I had heard about the poor air quality, but had no idea that it would be this bad. The dust on the track has aggravated the problem. It would have been better to hold the tournament in a less-polluted city like Bangalore,” said Odisha's Amiya Mallick, who competed in the men's 100m event. Another athlete, Arokia Rajiv from Tamil Nadu, who won the gold in the men's 400m on Friday, said the dust caused some problems for him but he was focused to give his best.

“Look at the JLN's football ground, it's so well-maintained. We all know the reason, the Indian Super League (ISL) takes place here. Delhi Dynamos pay SAI to maintain the ground. No one pays SAI to maintain the athletics track. Delhi and JLN stadium are not the ideal places for the athletes to train. Air pollution is just too much,” he said.

While no one in SAI was able to come up with a satisfactory response, Athletics Federation of India (AFI) secretary CK Valson called for a professional approach. “Maintaining a huge stadium like JLN is no joke. You need to have professional people to maintain it and keep the synthetic track dust free. SAI should give the contract to some ground maintenance agency.” 

Air pollution in Rio

In another three months, many of these athletes will be in Rio de Janeiro to participate in the Olympics. But the Brazilian city is also fighting air pollution. According to a report by the World Health Organisation (WHO), Rio is among the 1,600 cities of 91 countries having poor-quality air and constantly breaching the WHO's guidelines.

According to a report in the Inter Press Service news agency, the environmental authorities in Rio are installing more air quality control stations at the locations where competitions would be held during the Summer Games. The 16 new air quality monitoring stations in Rio, which will cost $14 million, will carry out checks on the emissions of polluting gases like carbon monoxide.

At the Olympic Games in Beijing and London, the levels of air pollution had come under scrutiny. In Beijing, during the Olympics, air pollution was at least two to three times higher than the levels deemed safe by the WHO.