E-Paper
Malleswari lashes at Pratima
An angry Malleswari lashed out at her teammate Pratima Kumari for holding her and coach Leonid Taranenko ?responsible? for the positive dope test in Athens.
The blame game continues. This time it is Karnam Malleswari's turn to present her side of the story. An angry Malleswari lashed out at her teammate Pratima Kumari for holding her and Belarussian coach Leonid Taranenko ‘responsible’ for the positive dope test in Athens.
Reacting to Pratima's allegation that it was Malleswari and Taranenko who forced the Indian contingent to practice in Belarus where Partima was administered some 'mysterious injections', Malleswari said: "Who am I to force her or the Indian team to practice in Belarus? Why are the Indian Weightlifting Federation and the government (Sports Ministry) there?"
However, on Pratima's positive test, Malleswari didn't want to comment anything except, "it’s a doping problem, wo bhi uski apni problem hai, so I can't say anything about it."
Malleswari reached her home, Yamunanagar, from Athens early on Saturday after a mysterious drop-out from her 63kg weightlifting competition in Athens on August 18.
"I am just a lifter and I can only speak about my own personal coaching and not
about what others are doing. Why would I interfere in their coaching?" asked the Sydney bronze medallist peeved at the allegations.
"Ye to commonsense ki baat hai...aap logo ko bhi pata hai," she said adding that it's because Pratima returned a positive test that she was making these wild allegations. "Yahan conspiracy kahan hai, mujhe nai pata."
"Why didn't she say these things before the Olympics?" she asked. "India is a free country and people can say whatever they want, I can't do anything about it."
Malleswari explained that Taranenko is an experienced coach who was hired by the federation and the government "for his experience after thorough scrutiny."
"It's not that they hired him because I told them to," she said.
When asked about her mysterious injury which everybody thought was stage-managed, she said, "Why can anyone relate Pratima's dope test with min?. You can't compare me with her. I have a back injury which is genuine and Pratima tested positive. There's nothing to hide."
