Punjab Govt steps back, but judokas from Zambia, Togo help Gurdaspur lad

Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Gurdaspur, February 10

Saini, a constable with the Punjab Police, competed in the Paris grand slam held on February 8 and 9 and accumulated 110 points. He has 986 points and is well on his way to bagging a continental berth for the Tokyo Olympics.

Visa restrictions meant that he could not travel back to India and instead he was to fly to Dusseldorf from Paris. However, he had no money to stay back and when international judokas Steven Mungandu of Zambia and Adebayo Frederic Olympio of Togo learnt about his predicament, they offered him a reprieve. They went a step ahead and also decided to bear his expenses for the Dusseldorf grand slam to be held from February 21 till 23. Interestingly, all three compete in the same 66-kg weight category and may well find themselves battling it out against each other in the Olympics.

“Both Steven and Adebayo asked their families to wire them money just to fund my stay in Paris and Dusseldorf,” Saini said. Things would not have been so bad for Saini had the Punjab Government not reneged on its promise of paying him his prize money.

According to Saini, the government owes him Rs16.2 lakh for his efforts of winning a gold medal in the 2019 Commonwealth Games held in the UK, two golds in the 2019 SAF Games held in Kathmandu and gold medals in three successive senior national championships.

His coach Amarjit Shastri said, “I took a loan of Rs1.4 lakh to ensure Saini goes to Paris. A Gurdaspur-based police officer, Kapil Kaushal, a former national judoka, contributed Rs50,000. The state government has formulated rules, wherein players are given incentives based on their performances. However, for the last three years, not a single penny has been paid to any sportsman. The favourite excuse of officials is fund crunch.”

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