Treated shoddily by Sports Ministry, shooter Sodhi left to fend for himself
Shooter Ronjan Sodhi has been left to fend for himself as he will train at his own expense in Italy for the final Olympic qualifier. CNN-IBN website reported that the 2013 Khel Ratna award winner and Rio Olympic medal hope was made to run from pillar to post by Sports Ministry officials before being told that they would not release training funds.
“I am going to train on my own. They have made me run from pillar to post for the last seven days and then said you have not cleared your bills,” he told CNN-IBN. “I was scheduled to go abroad and train, but some ministry officials think differently. I was supposed to be training in Italy right now, but my entire schedule has been upset. I was scheduled to leave on October 12, but I have been running from office to office all week. Ministry officials tell me my files haven’t been cleared as I haven’t submitted my accounts.”
Sodhi is a double World Cup Final winner and a former world record holder in double-trap. At his best, he is a serious medal contender for India.
“I was sanctioned about 30 days of training in August. Two days before I was scheduled to leave I got a call saying my personal coach has not been authorized to travel with me. I asked Mr Vivek Narayan, director, sports, for the reason and he said: ‘mera time naa barbaad karo, tumhe toh abroad bhej rahe hain na’,” Sodhi said.
Sodhi will be competing in the Asian Shooting Championship in Kuwait starting November 1. It is the last qualifying event in shooting for the Rio Olympics.
“This is a crucial period for me and my schedule has been thrown completely off track. If the ministry doesn’t want to give funding, they can always say no in the first place. Athletes can’t be promised a certain sanction only for it to be canceled at the last moment. My coach has been in Italy for over a week and I’m financing my own tickets and leaving now. The issue isn’t about me – no athlete should be subjected to this kind of treatment. Every bit of the funding for my training had been approved by the Sports Ministry,” said Sodhi.
Olympic shooting gold-medalist Abhinav Bindra described the incident as unfortunate. “The athlete really doesn't have much time at hand to deal with a lot of paperwork. There have to be measures put in place to make these things easier where athletes get their funding on time and easily,” Bindra said.
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