New Delhi: Star doubles shutter Ashwini Ponnappa slammed the Sports Ministry for ignoring her and partner Jwala Gutta in the Target for Podium (TOP) scheme and questioned the criteria of selecting players for the scheme.
The 2010 Commonwealth champions duo of Ashwini and Jwala were overlooked in the list of 45 athletes released by the ministry for the TOP scheme recently.
In badminton, Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu, Paruppali Kashyap, Kidambi Srikanth, RMB Guru Sai Dutt and HS Prannoy were selected for the scheme.
Earlier, Jwala Gutta also lashed out at the ministry for ignoring the top doubles duo.
”You can check the performance of the selected athletes and of ours after which you can get a fair idea of how we were neglected for the scheme. We won the bronze in World Championships, Commonwealth Games gold (2010) and silver (2014), bronze in Asian Games, Uber Cup and Asian Championship but still were ignored for the scheme. Its quite natural to be upset,” Ashwini told UNI.
”I don’t find anything wrong with Jwala (Gutta) raising her voice after being ignored in such a way. She is fighting for her right. We are neither included in the TOP scheme nor provided specialised coaches for doubles. The singles players get all the facilities while the doubles players are continuously ignored,” added she.
Ashwini further said it hurts athletes like her to be left in the cold even after achieving so much for the nation at the international stage.
”It pains me to see doubles shuttlers not getting their due even after striving so hard. Look at doubles tennis players, they are well paid and also get their due share of respect and honour. They also win medals for the nation like us, then why this discrimination?” the athlete pointed out.
Badminton Association of India (BAI) President Akhilesh Dasgupta recently announced appointing of specialised coaches for doubles players for the upcoming Rio Olympics next year.
But Ashwini denied any such developments and said they have been training without a coach for quite sometime.
”We haven’t got any such coach till now. We need such coaches who are well-trained for doubles and who have also played doubles badminton in the past. Till now, we are training without a coach,” said she. (UNI)
