IOA secretary general Rajeev Mehta
CHENNAI: Here's a question. Which country topped the medals table in equestrian at the 1982 Asiad?
If you answered India, well done. In New Delhi, when the discipline made its Asian Games debut, the hosts picked up three gold medals to go with a silver and bronze apiece. The country's equestrian athletes quietly picked up more medals in subsequent editions.
It looks as if their impressive run — India is the third best-performing country in terms of equestrian medals won at the quadrennial bash — might come to an end. Actually, it looks like India will have zero equestrian athletes at the upcoming Asian Games. After a week of drama between the Equestrian Federation of India (EFI), the selection committee, and the federation's president, there were showdown talks between them and the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) to thrash out the details of the stand-off. At the meeting, IOA accepted EFI's version of events.
"EFI and IOA had a meeting," IOA secretary general Rajeev Mehta told Express. "We discussed the possibilities and they explained the situation. We understand that they (the riders) have not met qualification criteria. Because time is also less (deadline to name squad is June 30), the most likely scenario is that a team may not go."
Earlier this week, EFI named a seven-member team for Jakarta (four in eventing and three in show jumping). Col RK Swain, EFI secretary-general, said a dressage team couldn't be selected because none of the riders qualified. A day later, EFI president Ashok Ambre, through a statement, annulled the selection.
What changed between June 4 and June 5? If Chinese whispers are to be believed, it's because the dressage team did not qualify. So EFI decided to send nobody. Brig AA Mahmood, one of the five selection committee members, poured water over suggestions of a conspiracy. "Only two riders met the selection criteria but we had recommended seven names because we thought they might perform well and have a good chance of winning a medal. After we recommend, it's entirely the prerogative of the president to accept or reject our nominations and that's what happened." The federation, it is learnt, could not enter the names of two because they had only met the selection criteria for the team events, where you need three athletes to take part.
Barring further IOA intervention, it looks likely that there will be zero representation from the equestrian contingent.
swaroop@newindianexpress.com
.jpg)