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Officials in quandary over Govt sacking of coaches
The Government's decision to sack two weightlifting coaches in the Olympic Games has put the Indian officials in Athens in a tricky spot.
The Government's decision to sack two weightlifting coaches following the positive dope tests of Pratima Kumari and Sanamacha Chanu in the Olympic Games has put the Indian contingent officials in Athens in a tricky position.
In the absence of any clear guidelines, none of them seems to be aware of procedural requirements to be followed to execute the government decision to sack national coach Pal Singh Sandhu and foreign expert Leonid Taranenko of Belarus.
There has been no precedence of coaches being sacked in the middle of the Games and the Government's action prompted another closed-door meeting of the contingent officials who were unsure as to what they were supposed to do under the circumstances.
Deputy Chef-de-Mission Harish Sharma is not sure whether he has to wait for a formal communication from the Government and of other procedural matters.
"All I know is that their (coaches') services have been terminated. There is no instruction to send them home immediately but we are trying to arrange for their tickets so that they can leave early," Sharma said on Wednesday.
Sharma admitted even if the they had to be sent back home, arranging for air tickets will be a problem.
"Getting a ticket at this stage is very difficult. We are trying, but if we can't manage they will go on their scheduled date of departure," he said.
The two had gone out of village when the news of their sacking broke and were believed to have also met a top Indian Weightlifting Federation official, Balbir Singh Bhatia, who is here as a Referee.
Both were supposed to have deposed before K P Singh Deo, the chairman of the two-member inquiry committee set up by the Indian Olympic Association to probe the scandal, and given their version of the story.
Sandhu has blamed the lifters and their personal advisors for the scandal saying the two lifters were tested at Minsk, Belarus, by WADA and by the SAI laboratory in Delhi a few weeks before the Games and the results had turned negative.
"Something must have happened during this period. They are now putting the blame on the coaches and tarnishing our image. Why would a coach deliberately do such a thing and put his future at stake," Sandhu said.
The IWF sending lifters to train in countries which have a history of producing drug tainted athletes had put them under the scanner of the International Weightlifting Federation for quite some time now.
The sports world body had repeatedly warned India not to employ coaches from these countries but the IWF did not care to heed to the advice.
But with the Sports Ministry finally deciding to crack the whip, the IWF may lose out on governmental fund in the future and may have even have lesser administrative independence.
