Turkmen president blasts sports chief

ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan, Aug 23, (AFP): Turkmenistan’s president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov gave his sports chief a public dressing-down on Tuesday after the Central Asian country’s athletes once more came home emptyhanded from the Olympics.

“It’s disappointing that even with all the facilities provided, you could not justify the trust of the nation,” Berdymukhamedov told the sports committee chief Kaakbay Seiidov in an angry encounter shown on state television.

Oil-rich Turkmenistan, with a population of five million, has never won a single Olympic medal, unlike its four neighbours in ex-Soviet Central Asia.

At Rio, none of its nine athletes got past the qualification rounds.

The president told the sports chief, whose position is the equivalent of minister, that he had failed to do all he could “to increase the sporting authority of the fatherland.”

The president also warned Seiidov to “make good on these shortcomings in the near future or face the sack,” state television reported.

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