NEW DELHI: Tejaswin Shankar can finally have a good night’s sleep. After writing on Twitter that he had been spending ‘sleepless’ nights waiting for his name to be included in the Indian athletics contingent for the Birmingham CWG, the good news finally arrived for the country’s leading high jumper on Friday.
In a sudden turn of events, Tejaswin’s name was cleared to compete at the CWG by the Birmingham organisers after a ‘Delegate Registration Meeting’ (DRM) of the chef-de-missions at the Athletes Village on Friday.
The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) later got the confirmation from the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) and organisers about the acceptance of his entry.
In a communication to the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) – which TOI is in receipt of – the IOA wrote: “Tejaswin Shankar’s entry has been approved by the CGF and, accordingly, accepted by the Sports Entry Department of the Commonwealth Games Birmingham 2022 during the Delegate Registration Meeting (DRM). You (AFI) are requested to kindly send the revised entry by name at the earliest.”
In the same message, the IOA also informed the AFI that women’s 4x100m relay specialist Jilna MV’s entry has been accepted to replace dope-tainted Dhanalakshmi Sekar in the Indian athletics squad.
Dhanalakshmi’s sample was collected out-of-competition by the World Athletics’ Athletes Integrity Unit (AIU) at her training base in Almaty, Kazakhstan, which later came out positive for a banned anabolic steroid.
Tejaswin had been left out of the 36-member squad for the CWG because of his nonparticipation in the AFI-mandated national inter-state championships in Chennai. The US-based high jumper, the only athlete to achieve the Indian qualification mark of 2.27m at the NCAA outdoor meet in June, had dragged the AFI to the Delhi High Court
against his non-inclusion.
The court had directed the IOA to accommodate him and four other athletes in the squad. Sadly, Tejaswin’s late entry wasn’t accepted by the Games OC on the grounds that like-for-like replacements of athletes were allowed.
