After missing the bus to Asian Games, Dipa Karmakar cries foul
A furious Dipa Karmakar, who was left out of the Indian team for the Asian Games, launched a blistering assault on the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and the Sports Ministry on Tuesday for their "deafening silence" that had left her disappointed and demotivated.
The gymnast, who just won the Asian Games trials in her event and finished in a remarkable fourth place at the 2016 Rio Olympics, was not included in the Indian team because she didn't meet the requirement of a top-eight result in the previous 12 months. It was not feasible in her instance since she was serving a two-year suspension for an anti-doping infraction.
Karmakar turned to social media two days after her coach Bisheshwar Nandi attacked SAI to express her rage and powerlessness.
“On this Independence Day, I am using my freedom of speech to discuss recent events that have proven to be very demotivating and discouraging. The #AsianGames2023, an event I have eagerly anticipated for the past two years, looks further than it is,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
According to official standards, athletes' performance in individual competitions during the previous 12 months shall not be less than that of the Asian Games' eighth-place finisher in quantifiable sports. Dipa believes that winning the trials should have been sufficient justification for her participation.
“To my surprise, despite topping the national trials and meeting the @IndiaSports selection criteria, it appears that I will be deprived of the opportunity to participate in the @19thAGofficial.” She had become frustrated by the authorities' silence.
“Worse still, the reasons behind this decision are unknown to me and have not been communicated officially. Instead, my fellow gymnasts and I are left to read about our exclusion from the Games in the news and I simply don’t know what to make of it.”
She pleaded with the authorities to conduct impartial evaluations.
“The hard work and sacrifice that goes into preparing for major games is rarely appreciated and instead met with uncertainty and deafening silence from Media_SAI and @IndiaSports. All I ask is for the selection criteria to be applied fairly and consistently across all sports.”
In her final paragraph, she expressed her continued confidence in her ability to compete in the Hangzhou Games.
“And request that the correct information be conveyed to us so that we don’t live in uncertainty. In the meanwhile, I owe it to my country to continue my training and I am hopeful that I will be joining @WeAreTeamIndia in Hangzhou next month. Jai hind!”