Mirabai kickstarts India’s gold quest Physio’s absence leaves lifters angry

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Administrators are busy ensuring their family members get to stay in Games Village while we struggled to get a room for our physio.

SAHDEV YADAV, IWF secy-gen.

because the physio could not enter. “The physio was not allowed inside and helped me from outside. My back didn’t feel as tight as I would have liked and did not support me as much as I would have liked during clean and jerk,” said Gururaja.

Sahadev Yadav was relentless in his attack on IOA for this goof-up. “Players get to have their parents in the Games Village, officials have their wives and children. But there is no place for a physio,” he said.

As per the norms set by the Commonwealth Games Federation and the Sports Ministry, officials should not be more than 33% of the total contingent with the rest of them being athletes. But Indian administrators have as usual compromised on coaches, physios and doctors for ‘extra officials’. The IOA washes its hands off the situation saying since neither the government nor the IOA pays for these extra officials, their presence doesn’t cost the exchequer. However, their number actually impacts the total number of places India get inside the Games Village.

IOA secretary-general Rajiv Mehta rejected all allegations and said that the physio’s name was not in the list on cut-off date.

“They made the change late. Still we tried but our request to have him as physio was rejected. As he has been included in place of an official, Saxena got the privileges that the official had.”