The Athletics Federation of India will mark the return of its flagship grassroots talent search programme, National Inter-District Junior Athletics Meet (NIDJAM), after a two-year gap to ring in changes in the competition rules to prevent early specialisation and over-training of teenage athletes.
The 18th edition of NIDJAM, which was declared open by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar at a simple but colourful opening ceremony at the Patliputra Sports Complex here today, will go down in history not only as the first to be held on a synthetic track but also as the one in which AFI usher significant changes.
AFI President Dr. Adille J. Sumariwalla said AFI had revised the regulations for the events this time in keeping with its attempt to prevent early specialization and to encourage coaches to not over-train teenage athletes. “We want the youngsters to enjoy the sport and not to face being burnt out because of early specialisation and over-training,” he said.
“We have reduced the sprint distance to 80m even for the under-16 group and restricted the Long Jump runway to five strides. Besides, it will not allow the Fosbury Flop in High Jump and allow only standing throws in Discus and Shot Put. The intention is to find raw talent that can be nurtured for the future,” he said.
A total of 5482 athletes from 599 districts across the country have entered the competition for boys and girls in two age groups, under-14 and under-16. A good measure of the enthusiasm can be had from the fact that there could be as many as 56 heats in the boys under-16 80m sprint and 39 heats in the girls under-16 80m sprint.
It will be a maiden National-level exposure even for many of the under-16 boys and girls entered in the competition here. They missed the experience of taking part in NIDJAM since the Covid-19 pandemic prevented the flagship talent search competition from being held for two years after the last edition in Tirupati in November 2019.
Dr. Sumariwalla said AFI was delighted that it could get NIDJAM back in its annual calendar after a two-year gap. “Due to the circumstances caused by Covid-19 pandemic, we could not conduct the meet in 2020 and 2021. We are extremely happy that we are back with a bigger and better version now,” he said.
He thanked the Bihar Government for hosting NIDJAM and the Rural Electrification Corporation for underwriting the cost of travel of the teams from across the country. “I am hoping that NIDJAM will be the first milestone in Bihar’s journey to becoming a powerhouse in track and field sport,” he said.
