Sambo, triathlon athletes dropped from Asiad squad

Vinayak Padmadeo

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 7

The Indian Olympic Association (IOA), under fire for axing a few sports disciplines from India’s squad for the Asian Games while being lenient on a few other sports, made a course-correction on Saturday.

After a protracted meeting between the IOA top brass and officials of a few sports federations, the axe fell on a few disciplines. Martial art sambo and triathlon bore the brunt as most of their athletes were axed after IOA decided to recheck their records. In the original squad announced by IOA, six Sambo athletes — two male and four female — were included. The number has been cut down to one — India’s sole representative in the discipline would be Shrikant. In triathlon, all four athletes named in the original list have been dropped.

IOA president Narinder Batra told The Tribune that rechecking the details of the athletes had showed a misrepresentation of their records. “It turns out a few of them had last competed over six-seven years back. So now only Shrikant is going,” Batra said.

“All four from triathlon will not go. We found out that we were being misled by the (triathlon) federation. They claimed that this was the first time triathlon was being held, but it is the second time the sport has been listed... As per our selection policy, they weren’t anywhere in the top-15,” Batra added.

Additions

However, there have been a few additions. In equestrian, three show jumpers have been added in the squad, and the same number of climbers have been added for sport climbing.

Equestrian Federation of India (EFI) president Lt Gen Ashok Ambre and secretary general Col RK Swain met the IOA top brass and it was after this that the show jumping team was cleared. Incidentally, IOA and EFI chose not to include a dressage team.

Two sailors, Varsha Gautham and Sweta Shervegar, have gone to court against the Yachting Association of India’s (YAI) decision to select Ekta Yadav and Shaila Charls ahead of them. Consequently, IOA has decided to wait for the court’s decision. “There will be a similar course-correction in swimming as well,” Batra said.

Push for football 

Batra hit out at the Sports Ministry for using unofficial channels to push for inclusion of a few sports disciplines. “Well, it was mostly about football. I have told them that it was their guidelines that we were following, and accordingly football did not qualify. If you want any change, then bring a change in that guidelines.”