New-look IOA takes charge under PT Usha
Usha wants her team to make IOA more accessible and collectively work for betterment of sports.
The Indian Olympic Association’s new executive body was elected on Saturday with legendary sprinter PT Usha officially taking charge as the first woman head of the organisation. Usha, 58, was 'elected unopposed' as there was no other candidate in the fray for the top post.
She will be heading a team that will be very different from the previous IOA regime with sportspersons, female administrators and elected Athletes Commission representatives as part of the 15-member IOA executive body.
Usha said she had never thought that she would become a IOA president. She said her team will collectively work for the betterment of Indian sports.
“I have lived only 13 years without sports. Afterwards, I was an athlete, a coach an administrator – all different roles. But I never thought one day I would become an IOA chief or become a Member of Parliament,” said Usha, who was also nominated in Rajya Sabha this year.
“This is all because of my sports and my special thanks to the newly constituted Athletes Commission, SOM, and federations that pushed me to give my nomination and supported me,” said one of India’s best sprinters who won multiple Asian Games medals.
“Me and my team will put a collective effort and we will do our best for the betterment of sport. We will take opinions of federations, athletes and coaches and we will work together to bring more medals for our country. We want to keep our tricolour high in the international arena,” she said.
Asked what will be the priority of the new IOA, Usha said it will be ‘accessible’ to every sportsperson.
“People think IOA is so big that we can't reach there. So, people can come out and they can say their problems and it should be easily accessible. Whether it is the associations or players, me and my team will be always there for them.”
The IOA elections at the IOA Bhavan here had a completely different vibe to them with Olympic medallists Gagan Narang, Yogeshwar Dutt, PV Sindhu taking part in the poll process. They were due for a year and various court orders had pushed for inclusion of elite sportspersons and gender parity in the governing body.
The Supreme court appointed retired judge Justice L. Nageswar Rao for amending the constitution of the IOA. The new constitution was framed in line with the court observations and also the National Sports Code and International Olympic Committee Charter. The executive body was trimmed down from 32 to 15. The executive body has a completely new look with eight sportspersons and five females, and no presence of any of the previous IOA executive body members.
Narang, an Athlete Commission member, will be the vice president (male) while Dutt was one of the eight Sportspersons of Outstanding Merit (SOM) nominated in the executive council. Olympian Dola Banerjee and former tennis player Rohit Rajpal also made it to the executive council. Usha too was nominated for the president’s post as a SOM.
Before the elections on Saturday, the governing council ratified the SOMs who were selected by the Athletes Commission. The process was overseen by returning officer Umesh Sinha, former secretary general Election Commission of India.
The executive body will also have Athletes Commission chairperson MC Mary Kom and vice-chairperson Sharath Kamal. For the post of secretary (female), Alaknanda Ashok of Badminton Association of India (BAI) defeated Suman Kaushik of Netball Federation of India. Besides, for the four posts of executive council for which elections happened on Saturday went to Bhupender Singh Bajwa, Amitabh Sharma, Harpal Singh and Rohit Rajpal.
Usha said sportspersons know the tough journey they make from a lower level to international level.
“It is good that there are so many sportspersons in the executive body. I am not close to the IOA, federations. I have come because of all sportspersons. I have come through SOM,” she said.
The executive body will now meet and will look to lay down the procedure of appointing IOA’s first Chief Executive Officer for running day to day administration.
“We will prioritise things. We have a new constitution and there have been several changes. There is a new post of CEO. After an executive committee meeting is called, one of the points on the agenda will be how to appoint the CEO and what will be the procdeure,” said Kalyan Chaubey, who was elected unopposed as joint secretary (male). He is also the president of All India Football Federation (AIFF).
Asked about the long-term objectives of the IOA, Chaubey said, “Maybe we would like to increase our medals in the Olympics, maybe we would like to host the Olympics. We would like come up with youth development plan, development of infrastructure, better policy for medical suppprt, retirement benefits , sports education. Those are areas we need to discuss.”