Sindhu in fray for the BWF athletes’ panel
Olympic silver-medallist and world No 2 PV Sindhu will be among the nine shuttlers vying for a position in the Badminton World Federation’s Athletes Commission.
The other Indian in fray for the four slots is relatively unknown male shuttler called Nikhar Garg, known more for his anti-establishment voice in the badminton fraternity than for his on-court performances.
Garg’s doubles ranking stood at 374th in January.
Garg’s nomination may have happened after he expressed his desire to contest for a slot in BWF Athletes’ Commission. The unknown Mumbai shuttler started an online petition in May 2016 urging BWF to grant greater autonomy to the independent players by allowing them to register directly for international tournaments instead of their associations.
The nominations closed on March 27 with six men and three women standing for the BWF Athletes’ Commission elections.
Training with Jamaican athletics legend Usain Bolt gave Wayde van Niekerk the self-belief he could break Michael Johnson’s 400 metres world record, he told The Times on Tuesday.
The 24-year-old South African duly delivered in perhaps the performance of last year’s athletics at the Olympics in Rio posting a time of 43.03 in the final to smash Johnson’s 17 year old mark of 43.18.
Athletics’ governing body meets in London this week to assess Russia’s progress in stamping out doping and whether the 50km walk has come to the end of the Olympic road.
Also at Wednesday and Thursday’s meeting the IAAF wants to discuss ending the practice of African athletes switching allegiances. The stamina-sapping walking event has been on the Games menu since Los Angeles in 1932 but is suffering from dwindling viewer interest and allegations of doping, especially among Russian competitors.