Only 3 weightlifters report for 2010 Commonwealth Games camp

The national weightlifting coaching camp for men and women at the NIS here is in dithers as out of the 53 lifters only a lone lifter in the men's section and two women lifters have reported in the camp which got underway on December 4. Of the nine coaches invited by the Indian Weightlifting Federation (IWF) to supervise the camp, only two coaches have turned up. These two are, Gurnam Singh of Punjab Police and Gaganbehari Bariki of the NIS teaching faculty here.

The camp to prepare the lifters for the forthcoming Commonwealth Games in 2010 in New Delhi ends on December 31.

The sources revealed to UNI that the men and women lifters were in New Delhi, waiting for visas, to leave for Cyprus for participating in the Commonwealth senior and junior weightlifting championship which was slated for December 4 to 9, but could not make it for want of visas.

Exasperated, the lifters preferred to go back home instead of reporting here at the NIS for the national camp. Moreover, the senior weightlifting championship is slated for January 27 to 31 in Pune, and the lifters have preferred to train and represent their respective States/Departments over the national camp here.

This attitude of the lifters tantamounts to gross indiscipline and the IWF is hapless to take cognizance of it since the Indian weightlifting has already been in the bad books of the International Weightlifting Federation in the recent past for doping scandals.

The Executive Director (TEAMS) of SAI, Joe Sebastian, must step in without delay to call off the ongoing national coaching camp here in view of unprecedented poor response from the selected lifters.

The secretary-general of IWF, B R Gulati had made efforts to persuade the weightlifters to attend the camp.

-- (UNI) -- 17SPD17.xml

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