Indian gymnasts cry out for help: is anyone listening?

Gymnastics. There is not much renown for the sport or its participants in India, and most readers will likely be unable to bring any iconic names from the sport to mind.

But sadly, it seems as though the authorities treat it with just as much apathy. An incident that occurred following the 21st edition of the Commonwealth Games held in India in 2010 has now assumed iconic status – so stark was the indifference of the authorities.

Indian gymnast Ashish Kumar, under the tutelage of Vladimir Chertkov, performed spectacularly at the Games, winning a silver and a bronze. He is currently the most successful gymnast in the history of the sport in India.

But after the 2010 Games, the President of India's Gymnastics Federation, J.S. Kandhari, sardonically asked Chertkov whether a bronze was "all he could deliver."

An incensed Chertkov did not mince words in talking about the federation and its organisers - "India needs a professional federation," he told the press. "The Gymnastics Federation of India just does not have any knowledge of the sport. It is a useless organization."

He then revealed that the facilities available to the gymnasts had been negligible at best. Kumar had been training on equipment that had been purchased in 1990, equipment totally unsuitable for an athlete of his calibre. The venue was not available to athletes until the last moment either, leading to them missing out on their home advantage, which Kumar revealed in an interview following the competition: "I think I could have won the gold had equipment arrived on time for the Commonwealth Games and the venue was also ready on time. Then we could have got the home advantage which we certainly lost out," he said.

At the time, Chertkov had said that India's federation was "composed of bureaucrats who don't understand the sport of gymnastics or the scope of what was accomplished," and that the federation continued to be apathetic, "not trying to learn any lesson from this year's competition".

Five years on, it appears that the song remains the same.

I spoke to Indian gymnast Simran Redij, who has competed both nationally and internationally and has faced the issues Chertkov mentioned first-hand. Following a post by social media page Humans of Bombay, who photographed Simran, I got in touch with her online, and she told me her story.

Simran Redij, Indian Gymnast

Redij, who trains under former gymnast Pooja Surve in Thane, near Mumbai, is incredibly disappointed at the apathetic attitude of the authorities. Her insight into the world of gymnastics in India throws a stark, unflattering light on how inadequate the facilities really are in the country.

In a post on social media, she mentioned being "shocked" at the facilities gymnasts from other nations were provided.

Just 10 minutes into our conversation, it became clear just how lacking the facilities are. "We had no real apparatus," says Redij. "We used to use basketballs and practise on regular gym mats if we were lucky."

The gymnasts practised, for the most part, on a mud surface with little to no cushioning. This cushioning, both Redij and her coach Surve (who is herself a former international gymnast) tell me, is essential to protect gymnasts' knees, which are prone to injury from landing.

"We moved on to practising on thin mattresses and floor carpets," Redij says. "Many of my friends ended up with injuries as a result."

The apparatus available to the students at that point in time was not of a quality approved by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique or FIG, which is the foremost international authority on gymnastics in the world. The spartan equipment was bought by the athletes themselves.

Redij's journey with gymnastics started in 2006, and up until 2014, she practised with other athletes at the Mumbai University Grounds in Kalina, the only place they had a single mat available that was up to international standard. The venue itself was ill-ventilated, with no windows. The floor was made of cement, too hard for gymnasts and athletes.

Barring a mat, the Mumbai venue had no equipment at all - students brought in their own music system and apparatus to practise. Redij and 10 other athletes shared the mat, and junior students had none at all.

The toilets below the seating area were not maintained either, with Redij describing them as "scary, and infested with bugs." Her coach confirmed that this had been the case when she had been competing as well, adding that national facilities at other venues were just as bad, if not worse.

Coach and student paint a sorry picture. "The competition and toilet facilities in the country are awful," Surve says. "Athletes are packed into rooms, expected to share very small spaces."

Redij talks of the 2011 Kolkata School Nationals, where 30 athletes shared a corridor-like room, and were expected to use water that was not potable. Redij describes the water as being "a dirty yellow colour."

"There was a row of unflushed toilets in the bathroom next to our room, and the water seeped into our rooms. Sanitary products were strewn all over the toilet, too. The stench was unbearable."

"I was so disgusted by it I couldn't bring myself to bathe that whole week", says Redij, who brushed her teeth using bottled water bought from nearby shops.

The authorities were provided significantly better facilities, according to Redij and Surve, and the former was finally allowed to use the washroom attached to an authority member's room after a few days of being too repulsed to use the ones made available to athletes.

Food poisoning is a constant fixture at these venues, say both student and teacher, with hygiene standards completely neglected.

Redij and other athletes paid their coaches fees in addition to funding all equipment that coaches purchased on their behalf, paying out of pocket for special training camps to hone their skills. "These cost as much as Rs. 20,000," says Redij. Their coaching fees more than doubled as well, which was compounded by the fact that the gymnasts had to bear the cost of expert visits.

Simran (C, looking at the camera) with the Indian contingent in Brazil

Selected to participate in the 2014 World School Games at Brazil, Redij arranged all travel paperwork independently. "The government paid for our travel and competition paperwork," she says, "but all the visa applications were handled by my parents."

Coach and student both mention having to deal with bureaucracy in the system, and say internal politics have played a significant part in the current sorry state of the sport. "An entire nationals event was cancelled because of a change in the postings," says Redij.

Her coach echoes her sentiments, saying the authorities are too caught up in the politics of their own organisations to care about the welfare of athletes.

Surve speaks of her own days in competition, when she went to Japan in 2009. The authorities rejected the Indian team's equipment for not being up to standard, following which the athletes pooled together some money themselves. They bought a single set of equipment from the stalls outside the venue, and this was shared amongst four athletes.

The championship was the first time the athletes had had access to gymnastics mats.

"State associations try sometimes," says Surve, "but the government is apathetic." She runs her coaching academy out of Thane, just outside Mumbai, and athletes like Redij travel every day to train with her. A local corporator, Sudhakar Rao Chavan, has helped them with a venue, some equipment and funding - the team has exclusive access to an indoor badminton court for practice for two hours every day.

Money is hard to come by in gymnastics, with no cash prize awarded for federation national events. School national events come with prizes, but the amounts are miniscule in comparison to the cost of being a gymnast. Currently, athletes and their parents spend on all training, equipment, paperwork, food and alternative accommodation as regular facilities are often unsanitary and unhygienic. They also pay for training camps, costumes, apparatus and often participation costs.

Athletes like Redij also pay daily travel costs, which are not low even when shared. She and the other gymnasts training at the Mumbai University campus at Kalina paid for their own commute from Thane to Mumbai to practise every day.

There is no awareness of grants or scholarship programs either - Redij identified and won one by independent research. The knowledge of scholarships is neither disseminated nor brought to light by the relevant authorities.

At the Brazil World School Games held in August 2014, Redij says her coach was disallowed from accepting funding from well-wishers as the money was considered a 'donation', which coaches are not allowed to take. Instead, the students not only paid their own way, but bore the coaches' expenses as well.

Athletes are not provided relevant extra training either, she says. A dance choreographer was assigned to them at a daily extra cost - a choreographer who had no training or understanding of gymnastics. For the uninitiated, the choreography in gymnastics is drastically different from regular dance.

Letters written to higher authorities have no effect, says Redij, as the officials are mired in their own politics and pay no attention to the problems of the athletes in the federations they run.

Coach Pooja Surve, demonstrating gymnastics techniques

"We don't even have a full-time venue, how are gymnasts expected to train?" asks Surve, saying that except for her local corporator, authorities have completely ignored her pleas.

She currently trains 200 athletes in Thane, and speaks fondly of her students. "There is a lot of young talent in India waiting to be nurtured, and it needs to be taken notice of from a very young age. It's quite difficult for a gymnast who starts older to have the flexibility of someone who has been training since their childhood."

The Indian gymnastics teams do not have choreographers, physiotherapists or most of the equipment they require to excel. But their raw talent, being honed by coaches like Surve, is waiting to shine.

“There has been no change in 14 years,” says Pooja. “We’re still practising in the mud.”

“We’re representing the country – but the authorities don’t seem to reciprocate.”

Held back by facilities and funding, India’s gymnasts continue to be hidden behind the wide shadow cast by cricket in India.

"We have talent", as Surve says. What is missing is any interest by foundations in actually developing that talent.