Water Sports Failures in Nagoya: Much Ado About Nothing!

Examining the Failed Disciplines in Nagoya Could Offer a Clearer Picture of Reality.

Ambassador Arjan: Iran's sports caravan ended its work in Nagoya with a total of 19 gold, 18 silver and 15 bronze medals, i.e. 52 medals, and placed sixth in the final table. Of course, this general statistic alone does not make the performance of all fields successful, nor does it prove the failure of all of them. For a real evaluation, one should look at the breakdown of the field, the number of dispatched people, the costs, the final ranks and the goals announced before the competition.

In general, the Iranian caravan was successful according to the existing conditions in the Asian Games, but this success, as always, was limited to only a few specific and repetitive disciplines such as wrestling, weightlifting, taekwondo, wushu, karate, etc., and the rest of the disciplines had no achievements except failure. It is not an exaggeration to claim that most of the Iranian convoys in Nagoya failed and did not meet expectations.

Nagoya was more than a surprise, it was a mirror in front of the federations where the gap between the claim and the reality of their performance was revealed once again.

A federation that talks about several golds and gets only one bronze, a federation that insists on sending a field but does not have a defensible output, a manager that talks about a historical achievement but its athlete is at the bottom of the table, or a structure that sends a team to the competition without adequate preparation, cannot simply remit to the future after the competition is over.

Nagoya should be the starting point of this reckoning, not a prelude to forgetting the failures until the day when the next caravan takes to the field again with the same promises. The country's sports caravan needs disciplines that have a plan and perspective to participate in continental competitions, rather than being just a name on the list of delegations and after the end of the competition, everything is postponed again to the promise of the next period.

Examining the failed courses in Nagoya will give us a clearer picture of the reality.

swimming; The national record has become the ceiling of dreams

In swimming, breaking the national record and reaching the finals should be recognized as an athlete's individual progress and placed in the form of an achievement, but the question is why these achievements are still far from a medal? When the goal is to qualify for the Asian Games, simply having a better record or reaching the finals cannot be the final answer about a federation's performance.

If Iranian swimmers repeatedly break national records, but their distance from the podium is still long, the quality of training, participation in international competitions, specialized coaches, and the long-term development program of swimming should be reviewed. Setting a record is a positive indicator, but it gains strategic value when it paves the way to compete for a medal.

For this reason, the swimming performance in Nagoya can be described as a "mild failure". Not in the sense that the efforts of the athletes were worthless, but because the output of the convoy at the continental level is still far from the goal of winning medals.

diving; Lots of ads, little output

Shirje, despite the advertisements and expectations raised about his athletes before the competition, could not add a significant achievement to Iran's record. The problem starts when the hype surrounding a discipline trumps technical evidence and measurable results. In professional sports, the name of the athlete, the promise of the coach or the hope of the managers does not change the final position in the competition table.

The Aquatic Sports Federation should clarify what level the diving athletes are in Asian competitions, how far they are from the contenders, and what is the plan to compensate for this gap. If a realistic assessment is not done before the deployment, the problem is not limited to the negative result, it is a problem with the decision making and expectation system.

water polo; The double defeat washed away the medal

Among the aquatic disciplines, water polo was one of the prominent examples of the gap between the snack and the result. The president of the federation, who himself has a history of being in the national team and captain of this discipline, had spoken many times about the hope of winning a medal in Nagoya, but the end of the competition was accompanied by a longing for the Asian platform.

The defeat against China, both in the group stage and in the qualifying match, was a significant blow to the pre-tournament claims. Losses in the group stage may occur during the course of a tournament; But when the team loses against the same opponent in the second chance to win a medal, it is no longer just bad luck.

This is where managerial responsibility becomes prominent. When the president of the federation has direct experience in this field and talks about winning medals, it is expected that the preparation program, the quality of preparatory games, and the assessment of the competitors' abilities are also at the same level.

Water polo did not medal in Nagoya, but the more important question is why the big promises before the games did not match the final output? The answer to this question should be in the technical report of the federation, not in the explanations after the competition.