Tirkey raises Odia athletes’ Olympic disqualification in RS

New Delhi: Rajya Sabha MP Dilip Tirkey raised the issue of Odia athletes Srabani Nanda and Amiya Mallick for the ensuing Rio Olympics in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday. Dubbing the negligence on the part of event organizers as 'unfortunate', Tirkey demanded strong action against the culprits.

“I was trying for the past couple of days to raise the issue pertaining to athletes Srabani Nanda and Amiya Mallick’s Olympic qualification goof up due to the negligence of the event organizers. Despite qualifying in their first attempt, why they should not be allowed to participate in the Olympics because of manual time-recording done by the organizers due to technical glitches? Our stance was why such negligence is shown to our athletes? Such negligence of authorities in the year of the Olympics would only hurt the morale of the athletes. We demanded action against the errant organizers and our stance was supported across party lines,” said RS MP Dilip Tirkey.

Notably, Srabani Nanda and Amiya Mallick had bagged gold in the recently concluded one-day Indian Grand Prix at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, which is conducted to give Indian athletes a chance to qualify for the Rio Olympic Games in August.

However, manual time recording was done for all the events due to a sudden power failure at the start of the event. But manual timings are not accepted for records by International Association of Athletics (IAAF). Subsequently, the organisers also withdrew the Olympic status of this event.