India have named a jumbo-sized contingent of 2,370 members with the organisers of the Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games. The list includes 1,938 athletes and 399 officials, among others. It’s a normal practice for the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) to initially register a large number of athletes with the organisers since only those registered can be eligible to take part in the multi-sport event.
However, it’s the taxing exercise to decide the final size by dropping the names of athletes and officials from this 2,370-member list which could lead to a heated debate between the IOA and the sports ministry. The deadline to submit the final list to the organisers is June 30.
IOA has planned to send 900-plus athletes and officials in 40 disciplines for the Asiad. However, the ministry may prune down the list to somewhere in the region of 600-650. This would mean a lot of chopping and changing, resulting in some heartburn among athletes and officials not selected.
For the 2014 Incheon Asiad, India had sent 541 athletes in 28 disciplines. In the coming days, some names (mainly officials) may be cleared at “no cost to the government” to accompany the contingent, leading to the IOA bearing their cost.
“We have submitted a long list of contingent where we have named 1,938 athletes, 399 officials, eight from IOA, seven from sports ministry and 18 from Sports Authority of India (SAI), resulting in a total of 2,370 members. We will prune down the list to nearly 900 athletes and officials by June 30,” IOA president Narinder Batra said.
For this to happen, IOA has put in place a selection criteria to choose the athletes. “For individual sport, the criteria is a top-six finish and in team sport it is a top eight finish at the last Asian Games in Incheon. Those who fulfil the criteria will be eligible for selection,” Batra said. Batra and IOA secretary general Rajeev Mehta talked about other important decisions taken during the Executive Committee meeting. This includes the IOA planning to submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) to the government to host the 2026 Youth Olympics, 2030 Asian Games and the 2032 Olympics, apart from conducting the IOC Congress in 2021.
IOA also announced the formation of separate ad-hoc committees which will hold the trials and select the teams in taekwondo, golf, gymnastics and archery. All these national sports federations (NSFs) are currently de-recognised by the ministry. IOA has also decided not to offer the Games’ accreditation to an athlete’s parents who accompany the contingent as “extra officials.”
