Power cut during Athletics meet robs India of potential Olympic qualification
Image Courtesy: © Facebook - Athletics Federation of India
Indian Grand Prix Athletics meet came to a farcical end on Sunday after a power cut at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium in New Delhi robbed India of potential Olympic qualification. Based on hand timings, four athletes appeared to have set national records and two might have qualified for Rio.
With no power at the stadium, the officials were forced to record the timings manually. The timings are not going to be considered for Olympics or even as records, with hand timings not being considered official. The Indian Grand Prix was the first athletics event of the season and was supposed to play the role of qualifier for the Olympics.
The Athletics Federation of India and the local body, the Delhi State Federation, passed the buck and blamed the Sports Authority of India for the power failure.
“We paid Sports Authority of India Rs 1.15 lakh to book the JLN Stadium and outside practice track area for the Indian GP and for Federation Cup (to be held from April 28-30). We also paid Rs 15,000 for security purposes. But to our surprise we found 15 minutes before the start of the meet that there is no electricity at the stadium,” a Delhi Athletics Association official was quoted as saying by the Indian express.
Based on hand timings, Amiya Kumar Mallick finished the 100m in 10.09 seconds, which could have seen him shattering the national record (10.30s) and qualifying for the Olympics (10.16s). Srabani Nanda in the women’s 100m also missed out on a possible Olympic spot, while Mohammed Anas in men’s 400m and L Suriya in women’s 3000m were robbed off potential national records.
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