In a shocking incident of sports officials failing our Olympic medal probables, it has come to light that our athletes were left thirsty and fainted at the finish line. India’s national record holder in marathon O P Jaisha’s Rio timing was 2 hours 47 minutes. Her timing for the same event in Beijing Worlds last year was 2 hours 34 minutes. Why such a difference you would think. The reason is marathon runners who run for 42 kilometres need water to keep hydrating. For this purpose, Olympic officials set up water stations at every 2.5 kilometres. At every 2.5 kms, other countries were giving their runners all these things while our Indian desks were empty with just the flag and the country’s name on it.

While India’s workstations had been erected, the officials manning them were nowhere to be found, meaning that the only way the marathoner had access to water was at the Rio official refueling centers. Those were located every 8km, which meant she would have had only five chances to hydrate and reenergize through the 42.195 km track. This reflected clearly in her performance the runner, who set a time of 2:34.43 at the IAAF World Championships in Beijing last year, finished 13 seconds past that mark in Rio, at 2:47:19. Jaisha collapsed at the finish line, and lay unconscious for 3 hours. Even at the end of the race she was taken off by Rio medical officials, with Indian officials unavailable to know of her condition or attend to her.