OP Jaisha, the marathon runner who represented India in Rio Olympics and collapsed at the end of the marathon alleged that the officials of Indian Athletics Federation were not present to offer refreshments during marathon.
On Tuesday, to probe marathon runner OP Jaisha’s allegations, Sports minister Vijay Goel constituted a two-member committee.
On Monday, Jaisha told NDTV that no AFI officials were present during her race to provide water and energy drinks at refreshment points. The senior officials of AFI have said that Jaisha’s allegations are false and the secretary of AFI CK Valson has said that Jaisha is giving excuses because she performed poorly in her race.
Valson said that Jaisha underperformed in the marathon in Rio Olympics that is why she has thrown this blame on AFI officials.
The 33-year-old marathon runner finished 89th among 168 runners. The Joint secretary (Sports) Onkar Kedia and director (sports) Vivek Narayan will be the part of the probe committee that has been formed. Kedia and Narayan will present their reports regarding these allegations in seven days.
After AFI officials said the allegations are false, OP Jaisha has been locked in a war of words with them.
In reply to the statement of AFI, she said, “Why should I lie? There was no water in Rio.” She straight away rejected the statement of AFI officials that Indian runners had refused the offer to have water and drinks served at the counters.
She said that both Kavita and she know that there was no water and after 21 km she was really exhausted.
Though Kavita has contradicted what Jaisha stated. She said that AFI told them that if they have any personal drink, they should put it in the bottle provided to them and hand it over to Athletics federation.
Kavita said, “I am telling you about myself and I refused to take anything. I have no such complaint.”
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24 August 2016
Avni S. Singh