Paris, July 21: A day after its Korean chief coach Baek Woong Ki was forced to leave following denial of Olympic accreditation, India’s archery contingent found itself at the centre of another controversy as it was alleged that a “tainted” physio was accommodated at his expense.
The contingent will be without Woong Ki and Dronacharya award-winning High Performance Director Sanjeeva Singh as both of them could not find a place in the contingent’s support staff.
A top Archery Association of India (AAI) official revealed that instead, physio Arvind Yadav has been included despite the fact that he faced allegations of making an “inappropriate approach” to a Canadian teenager during the Youth World Championships in Limerick, Ireland in November last year.
India had won a historic haul of six gold, one silver and four bronze medals at that event.
“As per the complaint from the World Archery competition manager Thomas Aubert, Yadav had made an inappropriate approach to a Canadian teenager on social media,” the official said.
“The Canadian coach reported this to the WA, who in turn raised the complaint with AAI. Federation called an ethics committee meeting and dismissed the matter saying the ‘inappropriate approach’ to the teenaged Canadian archer was a ‘normal hi, hello’,” he revealed.
Yadav, when reached out, rejected the charge altogether.
“It’s a conspiracy to malign me. Nothing of this sort has happened. Why didn’t AAI take action against me then? Also, the archers could have objected to my appointment,” Yadav said.
The AAI source claimed that Yadav is very close to the body’s secretary general Virendra Sachdeva.
“Whenever there is a top competition he makes such a back-door entry. He was there in Rio Olympics too. He didn’t accompany the team during the Asian Games last year.”
“This time also he came three months prior to join the national camp and was given an accreditation. The AAI could have easily cut off his name and allowed the Korean chief coach who is specifically contracted for the Olympics,” the AAI official added.
AAI president Arjun Munda refused to talk about the tainted physio.
“Why are you raking this up? Let’s not talk about it. Let’s not create another controversy now,” Munda said when asked about Yadav’s inclusion and the incident last year.
Munda insisted that it’s the archers who “wanted him” to be a part of the support staff.
“This is somehow a tricky decision which depends on the players’ comfort and whom they want in the team and the federation gives priority to that. AAI doesn’t interfere in this, we don’t want to force someone in the team,” said Munda.
AAI blames IOA for Woong Ki’s accreditation fiasco
The AAI official, who raised questions on Yadav’s inclusion, also pointed out that the IOA-approved 13-member medical team for Olympics, which is headed by acclaimed sports injury expert Dr Dinshaw Pardiwala, should have been enough for the archers.
“The team has physiotherapists, nutritionists, psychologists, even a sleep therapist this time. Why does the federation needs their own physio and psychologist (Gayatri Vartak) who has joined only a few months back?” the official questioned.
“They could have struck off those two names and easily included Baek and Singh, who has accompanied the Indian team in all the junior and senior events in this Olympics cycle,” he said.
“Singh is an expert in archery and someone who set up the Centre of Excellence in Sonipat at the cost of Rs 100-crore. He also brought in the current AAI sponsors NTPC,” he added.
In search of their maiden medal in the Olympics, the Indian archery team has spent 10 days at their base camp in Compeigne, which is 80km north of Paris.
The AAI blamed the Indian Olympic Association for rejecting their “repeated requests” to accommodate Singh and Woong Ki, despite the fact that the IOA had clearly specified it “won’t allow more than four officials” for the six-member contingent.
India have Sonam Singh Bhutia (from Army Sports Institute) as the men’s coach and Padma Shri Poornima Mahato as women’s coach, who is from Tata Archery Academy since two of their archers in the team. All the three male archers are from ASI.
“IOA set a yardstick and despite all our requests they didn’t accept one more accreditation.
“I spoke to PT Usha personally requesting her to include… The IOA should have fought for it. It is beyond my logic why they are not allowing one official in AAI whereas many officials are accompanying in other federations,” Munda added.
Former AAI functionary Anil Kamineni said IOA follows a quota system and there was no way another coach could be accommodated.
“This is how it is and we should now focus on doing well in the Olympics. Our archers have been doing well and let’s hope for the best,” Kamineni said.
Woong Ki left for India on Saturday and made it clear that he would not stay beyond August 30, when his contract ends.
India’s HPD Sanjeeva Singh predicts 3 medals in archery
Amid the accreditation controversy, former Olympian and SAI’s high performance director for the sport Sanjeeva Singh is confident the six-member squad will return with three medals from the Olympics and end its decades-long quest for success in the quadrennial showpiece.
Indian archers will start in all five categories – men’s individual recurve, women’s individual recurve, men’s and women’s team and mixed team.
Six Indians – Dhiraj Bommadevara, Pravin Jadhav, Tarundeep Rai, Deepika Kumari, Bhajan Kaur and Ankita Bhakat – have qualified for Paris 2024 and following a training-cum-acclimatisation stint at Compiegne in France, they were among the first batch of athletes from the country to enter the Games Village.
“Compared to 2021 Tokyo, the preparation has been better planned with a lot of stress on scientific training, mental conditioning and more importantly, tweaking the nature of domestic tournaments in line with the Olympic format,” Singh, the HPD of SAI’s National Centre of Excellence for archery in Sonepat, said in a statement.
“If we go by current form and the way the archers are performing, we can realistically look at three medals – men’s individual, men’s team and mixed team. Out of these three, one will definitely happen. A medal from the women’s competition will be a bonus but the team has to click together,” said Singh, a regular with both the junior and senior national squad in international competitions, but who is not with the team in Paris. (PTI)
