Ministry may stick to first list
New Delhi: Suspense remained over discus thrower Krishna Poonia’s plea for considering her name for the prestigious Khel Ratna award even as the Sports Ministry on Tuesday indicated that there may not be any change in the original list of awardees. After the chorus for considering Poonia’s name for the Khel Ratna grew, Jitendra Singh on Monday had one round of meeting with his secretary P K Deb. Since the meeting remained inconclusive, they met again on Tuesday for a final decision. Though Jitendra is yet to give his final approval on the decision to stick to the original list that was issued last week, a top official in the Sports Ministry said that there was likely to be no change in either the name recommended for the Khel Ratna award or the initial 15 names of sportspersons nominated for the Arjuna awards. “There is no change in the initial list of athletes recommended for either Khel Ratna or Arjuna awards. Everything remains the same,” the said.
Indian archers misfire in WC
Kolkata: India had a disappointing start to the Archery World Cup Stage IV at Wroclaw (Poland) with the country’s best medal hope Deepika Kumari slipping to 19th as the women’s recurve team finished sixth and men’s squad earning the fifth place in the qualification rounds on Tuesday. According to information received here, Deepika shot 647 finishing behind laishram Bombayla Devi who logged 649 points for an overall 18th place in the qualification rounds. Rimil Buriuly, the third member of the women’s recurve team, with a score of 632 finished lowly at 42nd place as the trio totalled 1928 for a sixth place in the team event.
More Overaged athletes
New Delhi: In yet another embarassing goof-up, three Indian weightlifters were disqualified from the second Youth Asian Games in Nanjing because of overage, adding a new twist to the shocking administrative fiasco which has already seen 24 athletes being barred from participation. The entries of three weightlifters — Chandrika Tarafdar (Women’s 48kg), Jyoti Mal (women’s 53kg) and Akshay Bhagwan (Men’s 62kg) — have been rejected by the Nanjing Games organisers due to overage issue. All the three were 1996 born weightlifters. The new developments comes barely a couple of days after 18 track and field athletes were earlier disqualified from the Games due to overage issue, prompting the Sports Ministry to launch an inquiry into the incident.
Neha favourite for tourney
Bangalore: Kolkata golfer Neha Tripathi, who has been in stellar form with three consecutive wins at the Hero Women’s Professional Golf Tour 2013, will be leading the field for the eighth leg of the tour to be held at the Karnataka Golf Association golf course here from August 20-23.
PNS/Agencies