Curbs hit judo players hard

Ravi Dhaliwal
Tribune News Service
Gurdaspur, June 24

Scores of international and national judo players have written to the Sports Ministry and Judo Federation of India (JFI) urging them to issue an advisory on when and how to resume training amid increasing fears that social distancing norms may not allow for “contact sport” to be resumed in the near future.

Players whose careers hang in the balance are Jasleen Saini (2019 Commonwealth championship and South Asian championship gold medalist), Manpreet Singh (2018 Asian championship bronze), Jobandeep Singh (2018 Commonwealth championship gold), Maheshinder Saini (2019 Youth Asian- Pacific championship gold), Ritik Sharma and Anmol Deep (both 2019 Inter-University gold), Manpreet Singh (2019 Junior Asian championship bronze), Sagar Sharma (2019 SGFI School National gold) and Chirag Sharma (2019 SGFI bronze).

All these sportsmen are products of the local JFI coaching centre which, over the years, has produced nearly 60 international players, including Rio Olympian Avtar Singh, and over 150 national level judokas.

The centre was locked on March 24. “It may not open till next year, that is, till the Covid scare goes away if at all it does,” said a judoka.

Coach Amarjit Shastri said a majority of players were in government jobs and the employers had asked them to do clerical work.

“Our promotions are performance-linked. Without tournaments, we cannot win medals. Without medals, there can be no promotions. And without promotional avenues, we will stagnate,” said Jasleen, an employee of the Punjab Police.