Bhubaneswar: April 25: Dream of Odia sprinters Srabani Nanda and Amiya Mallick to participate in Rio Olympics shattered due to the casual approach of Sports Authority of India (SAI) and the Delhi State Athletics Association (DSAA).
Both of them had bagged gold in the one-day Indian Grand Prix at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, which was conducted to give Indian Athletes a chance to qualify for Rio Olympics in August.
Srabani Nanda not only created a new national record with a timing of 11.23 seconds but also met the qualifying mark for Rio. Similarly, Amiya Malik of Odisha also got the Rio qualification mark with a national record of 10.09 seconds in the men’s 100 m. But, they will not be qualified because of no mistakes of them. The mistake is with the organisers, who recorded time manually. Manual timings are not accepted for records by International Association of Athletics (IAAF).
It is said, the Nehru stadium has back-up generators but there was no stadium staff to operate generators as Sunday was their off day.
BJD MPs Bhupinder Singh and Dillip Tirkey reacted over the issue and decided to raise the issue in the Rajya Sabha tomorrow. Rajya Sabha MP and former captain of Indian Hockey team described the incident as ‘most unfortunate’ and has given notice in this regard. Another MP of Rajya Sabha from Odisha Mr.Singh has sent a letter to the Union Sports Minister demanding for re-test of both the Odiya Sprinters.
