Gold Coast gold winners axed in TOPS reshuffle
NEW DELHI: Rifle shooter Gagan Narang, the 2012 London Olympics bronze medallist, woman distance runner Lalita Babar and three Commonwealth Games lifting champions were among 12 athletes axed from the union sports ministry’s Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) scheme on Wednesday.
The Sports Authority of India (SAI) said in a statement that the athletes were dropped from the cash incentive scheme due to “poor recent performances and fitness concerns”.
Besides Narang, who failed to win a medal at the Gold Coast CWG last month, and Babar, the others axed from TOPS are shooters Harveen Sarao, Pooja Ghatkar, Meghna Sajjanar, Satyendra Singh, Omkar Singh and Prakash Nanjappa, weightlifters Ragala V Rahul, Punam Yadav and Sathish Sivalingam as well as 20km race walker K Ganapathy.
All three axed weightlifters, Sathish (77kg), Rahul (85kg) and Punam (women’s 69kg), had won gold at the Gold Coast CWG. Yadav has been left out for indiscipline, according to a Weightlifting Federation of India (WFI) official. The other two lifters are injured and the official said they would be brought back under TOPS once they recover.
SIX ATHLETES INCLUDED
The Mission Olympic Cell at its meeting on Wednesday also decided to add six new athletes to TOPS. Women discus throwers Seema Punia and Navjeet Kaur Dhillon, teenage 400m runner Hima Das, shooters Akhil Sheoran and Elavenil Valarivan as well as weightlifter Rakhil Halder are the six inducted.
Two other weightlifters, Sanjita Chanu and Pardeep Singh, originally part of TOPS till the Gold Coast CWG, were retained in the scheme, SAI added. Seema, 35, won silver at the CWG while fellow discus thrower Navjeet, 23, had bagged a bronze. The 18-yearold Hima had impressed by qualifying for the women’s 400m final at the Gold Coast CWG, where she clocked a personal best 51.32 seconds to finish sixth.