From Dipa Karmakar to CWG gold medallit Achinta Sheuli, the final list of 634 athletes across 38 disciplines cleared by the Sports Ministry for participation in the Asian Games on Friday saw a massive cut. The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) had sent a recommendation of 850 athletes. However, the Sports Ministry said it has cleared only those “who met the set selection criteria.”
Several federations, jolted by the cut, called the selection criteria “unreasonable” and slammed the way it was applied “arbitrarily” to give a go ahead to a sport like football while leaving out “meritorious” athletes like Karmakar or disciplines like women’s sabre team.
Sabre came into focus when Bhavani Dev qualified for the Tokyo Olympics. While Bhavani was cleared for participation as an individual athlete, the team she was part of was dropped. In gymnastics, only Pranati Nayak will compete, as four male gymnasts and Karmakar were axed. Sports like triathlon, modern pentathlon, and taekwondo were left out while some weightlifters, the 4×100 relay teams also failed to make the cut.
As per the criteria, notified by the sports ministry on July 10, in individual events the performance in the last 12 months “should not be less than the performance achieved by the 8th position-holder of the 2018 Asian Games in measurable sport”. In team events, sports which achieved a ranking up to 8th among participating countries of Asia in the last one year were considered. The final discretion to “provide relaxation of the above criteria with justifiable reasons.” was with experts and the Sports Authority of India.
Karmakar’s coach Bishweshwar Nandi said Karmakar had clearly made the cut in the selection trials but there was no clarity with regards to the criteria.
“There was so much confusion regarding the criteria. Firstly, in a technical sport like gymnastics you can never select a team based on past performances. It has to be recent performances. Who are these experts who set the criteria? I have never seen this happen in so many years of coaching experience. Gymnastics is an Olympic sport and this decision is going to hurt the sport big time,” said Dronacharya awardee coach Nandi, who guided Karmakar to a fourth-place finish at the Rio Olympics.
A meeting was held between SAI and GFI on August 11 where as per the minutes of the meeting, “the GFI was satisfied with the decision in respect of the women gymnastics.”
It was, however, learnt that the Gymnastics Federation of India (GFI) sent a letter to the Sports Ministry a fortnight ago backing Karmakar’s candidature. In the said meeting SAI said GFI has compared the score of the preliminary round of the three selected male gymnasts with the score of the final round, which is not justified.
A GFI official said SAI itself had mentioned in its criteria “position holder” which means it was the score of the final round and that there was no clarification if that was changed.
A fencing coach said the criteria was applied arbitrarily. “The women’s sabre team is just outside the top 8 in Asia while last year it was 5th. There are many upcoming fencers who have started doing well at the big stage and they were left out. There is so much competition at the Asian level. You don’t expect rankings to go up overnight,” the coach added.
Another federation whose discipline was not considered for team sport said the ministry should have used the criteria objectively. “If a team is ranked just outside the criteria, then it is subjective. It is about how much you want to develop the sport, give them exposure etc. You can’t allow one sport which is ranked as low as 18 (men’s football team) and leave out other disciplines,” said the official.
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