Gagan Narang, three CWG champion lifters, dropped in TOPs scheme reshuffle

Olympic medal-winning shooter Gagan Narang had failed to win a medal at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games and was among 12 athletes removed from the union sports ministry’s cash incentive scheme.

other sports Updated: May 09, 2018 21:43 IST

Gagan Narang is the most prominent name to be dropped from the list of athletes under the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS).(HT file photo)

Rifle shooter Gagan Narang, the 2012 London Olympics bronze medallist, woman distance runner Lalita Babar and three Commonwealth Games lifting champions were among 12 athletes axed from the union sports ministry’s Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) scheme on Wednesday.

The Sports Authority of India (SAI) said in a statement that the athletes were dropped from the cash incentive scheme due to “poor recent performances and fitness concerns”.

Besides Narang, who failed to win a medal at the Gold Coast CWG last month, and Babar, the others axed from TOPS are shooters Harveen Sarao, Pooja Ghatkar, Meghna Sajjanar, Satyendra Singh, Omkar Singh and Prakash Nanjappa, weightlifters Ragala V Rahul, Punam Yadav and Sathish Sivalingam as well as 20km race walker K Ganapathy.

All three axed weightlifters, Sathish (77kg), Rahul (85kg) and Punam (women’s 69kg), had won gold at the Gold Coast CWG.

Six new athletes included

The Mission Olympic Cell at its meeting on Wednesday also decided to add six new athletes to TOPS.

Women discus throwers Seema Punia and Navjeet Kaur Dhillon, teenage 400m runner Hima Das, shooters Akhil Sheoran and Elavenil Valarivan as well as weightlifter Rakhil Halder are the six inducted into the scheme.

Two other weightlifters, Sanjita Chanu and Pardeep Singh, originally part of TOPS till the Gold Coast CWG, were retained in the scheme, SAI added.

Seema, 35, won silver at the CWG while fellow discus thrower Navjeet, 23, had bagged a bronze.

The 18-year-old Hima had impressed by qualifying for the women’s 400m final at the Gold Coast CWG, where she clocked a personal best 51.32 seconds to finish sixth.

Shooters Sheoran, 22, and Valarivan, 18, won gold at the Guadalajara World Cup and Sydney Junior World Cup, respectively.

Weightlifter Halder came to limelight when she broke the 19-year-old national record of Olympic medallist Karnam Malleswari in the women’s 63kg category this year.

Fellow lifters Sanjita and Pardeep had bagged gold and silver respectively at Gold Coast, helping them to get extensions in TOPS.