Errant archers, coach banned for three years

NEW DELHI: The Association of Indian Universities (AIU) has banned three archers and the compound coach for three years after they missed the bronzemedal match against Italy during the World University Games in Gwangju, South korea earlier this month.

The punishment means that Gurwinder Singh, kamalpreet Singh and Aman become ineligible to participate in any inter-university tournaments and international university games till the calendar year 2017-2018. Compound coach jiwanjot Singh too has been banned for the same period.

HT had carried a report on july 8 highlighting the fact that the archers had failed to arrive at the competition venue, thereby forfeiting the match. Initially, jiwanjot had said that one of the archers — Gurwinder — suffered equipment failure and they arrived at the venue only a couple of minutes late, but the organisers announced the forfeiture despite repeated requests. Then, it was conveyed to a section of the media that the forfeiture happened because of confusion among coaches about the timing of the match as the organisers had changed the original schedule. On both counts, jiwanjot was found to be lying.

Based on the report in HT, the AIU sought a detailed report from the head of delegation, Rk Sharma, on the incident.

“The inquiry report was examined... it was found/observed that athletes and official of the Indian contingent failed to turn up for participation in the prestigious event. This showed utter negligence of official duty and gross violation of code of conduct of FISU rules by the athletes and official, leading to disrepute, embarrassment and tarnishing the image of India at the international platform,” the AIU joint secretary, Gurdeep Singh, said in a letter addressed to director-general, Sports Authority of India, secretary sports, Archery Association of India secretary-general and the registrar of Punjabi University.

“Taking a serious view of the incident, it was decided to suspend athletes (Gurwinder Singh-GNDU Amritsar, kanwalpreet Singh-Punjabi University and Aman-University of Rajasthan, jaipur) and official jiwanjot Singh (Punjabi University) for a period of three years w.e.f. current year 201516 to 2017-18, barring them from association/participation both in inter-university tournaments and international university games,” the letter added.

REFUNDS DEMANDED All the archers have been asked to refund the expenses incurred on them. “Further, expenditure incurred on their selection, training and participation including TA/DA, playing kits, valid visa, travel tickets (both ways) need to be recovered from erring athletes and official immediately as Indian delegation was cleared and sponsored with a specific purpose of winning medal(s) and pursuing excellence at international sporting event, not for luxury excursion at the cost of public funding,” Singh said in his letter.