With Rio Olympics only less than six months away, top Indian athletes are expected to cut short their training and exposure stints to become available for the South Asian Games (SAF Games) in Guwahati and Shillong.
The eight nation tournament with 23 disciplines should arguably be resigned to the backburner for top shuttlers such as Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu and boxer Shiva Thapa who are all strong contenders for a medal at the biggest sporting event in the world. But, they along with other stars are “being encouraged to play at the SAF Games” said Sports secretary Rajiv Yadav on Monday.
He denied that there is pressure on any athlete to play. “We have only encouraged them to play at the SAF Games. There is no pressure on them by us or the federations,” he said.
However, a Badminton Association of India (BAI) source told PTI that both Saina and Sindhu have sent in letters citing health issues to skip the SAG. “Some of the top players such as Saina and Sindhu have sent letters to the BAI citing fitness and health issues to skip the SAG. We will try to convince them or leave it to the government to take a call,” said a BAI source.
SAF Games clashes with Thailand Masters where both Saina and Parupalli Kashyap had sent in entries.
Yadav also shared that 3500 athletes had been invited and 3333 had confirmed their participation. India will be fielding the strongest contingent with more than 500 athletes while Sri lanka and Pakistan will be fielding a 400-plus contingent. For Pakistani athletes, he said that they will be arriving in batches as against the previously mulled idea of a 450-plus contingent arriving together from Islamabad.
Also, PM Narendra Modi will be present at the opening ceremony along with the two state chief ministers to declare the games open. The ceremony will be held on 5th February at 5PM.