NEW DELHI: The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), led by its new president Sheikh Talal Fahad Al Ahmad Al Sabah, on Tuesday rejected the Indian Olympic Association's (IOA) fresh request to extend the deadline for submitting final entries of the wrestlers for the Hangzhou Asian Games by August 15.
In a decision taken at its Kuwait City headquarters, Sabah informed IOA president PT Usha that no further extension can be granted beyond the July 23 deadline to submit entries by name.
As a result, the trials to select the wrestling team have to be conducted latest by July 22 and the final entries have to be sent the next day. The two-member ad-hoc committee, which has been tasked to run the day-to-day affairs of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI), now plans to conduct the trials on July 21 and 22 at a venue yet to be announced.
The protesting group of wrestlers, including Bajrang Punia, Vinesh Phogat and Sakshee Malikkh, remained non-committal about participating in the trials for the Asiad since all of them have been training abroad and had planned to return to India only if the OCA had accepted the IOA's request to extend the deadline for sending entries for the purpose of holding trials between August 5 and 15.
Last week, Usha, IOA's senior vice president Ajay H Patel and joint secretary and acting CEO Kalyan Chaubey had travelled to Bangkok to convince the OCA leadership to extend the deadline for submitting entries by August 15. At that time, Sabah had assured the IOA representatives that he would discuss the matter internally with the OCA's office bearers upon reaching Kuwait City. On Tuesday, however, Sabah informed the IOA president that a majority of OCA members have rejected the request.
According to sources in the IOA, there has been no confirmation from the six protesting wrestlers - Bajrang, Vinesh, Sakshee, Sangeeta Phogat, Satyawart Kadian and Jitender Kinha - to compete in the trials at such a short notice since all of them have been out of training for nearly six months following their sit-in protest against former WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and are facing difficulty to cut down their weights.
While Bajrang and Jitender have been training in Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan, Vinesh, accompanied by her sparring partner Sangeeta, are in Hungary's Budapest where the two-time World Championships medallist will compete in the Polyak Imre & Varga Janos Memorial Ranking Series tournament scheduled from July 13 to 16.
Sakshee and Satyawart have been training in Michigan, US, since last week.
