A LOOK INTO THE DSO STATES'23 COMPETITION...

What a week it has been! Attending this year's Dso states was a lot of fun and at the same time has been a very memorable experience. The states for diving, swimming, and water polo were held at the Balewadi sports stadium pool in Pune. Even though it was only for two days, it was a worthwhile competition. There weren't many people competing in diving this time, so it went by quickly, with U/14, U/17, and U19 girls and boys competing in their respective categories. The first day of the competition was spent in training and practising for the event, while the next day all of the events began and were also-over within a day. I wouldn't say it was my best competition, but I definitely improved a lot and finished 2nd on both my events. Apart from that, I think Mumbai as a district did really well overall, coming in top 2 in most of the age groups, but overall when it comes to the organisation of the competition, I really don’t think they have organized it well…

2 REASONS AS TO WHY I FEEL DSO WAS UNORGANISED THIS YEAR:

1) Partiality towards diving : how diving has been viewed all the time because it is not a well-known sport in India due to a lack of awareness of the sport and diving in general is a very difficult and scary sport so not everyone would have the courage to do the sport but aside from that the divers and coaches were not treated well, nothing compared to the swimmers and this is not the case only in this competition but in other competitions as well. Because swimming, diving, and water polo were all taking place in the same complex, I expected a lot of noise and chaos, but this time they really went over the top. here is an example for why I made this statement: The volume of the speaker at the diving pool was very low in comparison to that of the swimming pool during the diving competition of boys and girls U/14, when the announcer was announcing the dives of the competitors on the mike, the divers weren't able to understand which dive they had to perform because of clashing of sounds and a few divers even performed a wrong dive because of it. This only happened because the speaker at the swimming pool is extremely loud, and during the diving competition, they were testing the Mike there, and even after the diving coaches and officials repeatedly told the person to stop speaking on the Mike he still did not stop, It was only when all of the parents sitting in the viewing gallery had to literally shout and tell him to stop speaking on the Mike that is when he stopped. Now, I'm not sure if this was intentional, but I definitely believe that the divers were neglected because honestly, it doesn't appear that swimming and head officials care whether or not the diving competition is taking place. I understand that the sport isn't that popular or well known in India, but that doesn't mean that it should be disrespected, right?

2) LACK OF PLANNING : All of the diving events were completed in a single day, beginning in the morning and ending around 7 p.m., and as the events concluded, the results were also announced.... Now here's the problem: by the time all the events were over, it was nearly 7:30 p.m., the swimming and water polo events had already ended, so everyone had left the premises, and as soon as our events were over, the lights were turned off. We thought the medal ceremony would be right after our events, but it turns out that it was going to happen the next day, so most of the coaches and divers had to leave to return back home, but since my friends and I had booked an extra night we stayed back hoping to get our medals the next day…When we got up we were so clueless as we were not informed about anything, whether the ceremony was going to happen and if the medals were even going to be given. I had asked my friend who was at the pool to ask one of the officials, when the diving ceremony was going to happen, when she asked them they said, “They did not know anything about diving ceremony” , I was wondering if the head officials did not know anything about diving then were we even going to get our medals ? After this , My teammates and I left. I had given all of the forms to my friend who was in swimming and asked her to collect all of our medals, and even after that she told me that they only had the ceremony in the evening and that they did not even let them collect our medals or certificates even after showing them our ids, and that they also did not even let the swimmers collect their certificates and told them to collect it later from their office. I mean, even after competing and winning, they didn't tell us when we'd get our medals.... Honestly since most of us did not attend the medal ceremony, we lost all of our excitement of even winning the medal. Only one diver received a medal out of the entire group. He too was sitting in the stadium for hours on end, and he only got his medal in the evening.

This is what I dislike about Dso or any small competition in general: we never know what will happen, whether our events will take place on the day allotted to us, whether we will receive a medal, or how long everything will take. Everything is so last-minute that you have no idea of how many days you even have to book a room for to stay in a hotel? We're not asking the organisers for anything major; we're simply asking them to be organised enough to provide us with a proper schedule of the events and when everything will take place, this will only help the athletes to make accurate bookings and save both time and money.

This is one of the main reasons why India does not host major competitions such as the Olympics and other world championships, due to a lack of organisation and poor planning.

Conclusion

Now in the end, I’d just like to summarize and say that however poorly organised this competition was I do think it was a fun competition, especially to bond with your teammates and get more exposure and experience. Meeting divers and athletes from different cities and backgrounds and even interacting with them is a lot of fun . You know at the end of the day this is what these competitions teach you how to be independent , how to mix with the crowd and get out of your comfort zone and have fun at the same time.

However I would like to give feedback to the school sports organizers, that they should be more fair and give equal attention to all three sports while also being more organised and supportive of the athletes, coaches and officials so that the next time they host a competition, it will be well planned and the athletes will know the schedule ahead of time.

What are your thoughts on this week's blog? If y’all were in my place what would your feedback be to the dso committee and organizers? Let me know in the comment section 👇