Bhaichung Bhutia’s bold decision to boycott the Olympic torch relay on Tuesday evoked sharp reactions from sporting greats, who asserted that the Indian football captain should not have mixed sports with politics.

Bhutia, a Buddhist from Sikkim, has announced that he has sympathy for the Tibetans who are opposing the Beijing Olympic Games and would not run with the Olympic flame.

“I sympathise with the Tibetans’ cause. I’m against violence but I thought I should stand by the Tibetan people in their fight,” said Bhutia, who thus became the first Indian athlete ever to opt out of an Olympic torch relay.

But the decision has not impressed hurdler G S Randhawa and ‘Flying Sikh’ Milkha Singh, who are among the legendary athletes invited to run in the April 17 relay in the national capital. They said a sporting arena was not the right place to make a political statement.

“Personally, I feel sports and politics should not be mixed. And I’ll surely take part in the relay,” Singh said.

The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) also made it clear that it would not persuade Bhutia to reconsider his pull-out, saying it respects the national soccer skipper’s “personal decision”.

IOA clarifies

The IOA Secretary General Randhir Singh said they had received Bhutia’s letter detailing his reasons to opt out of the relay. “As far we are concerned, we have a very simple theory. Sports and politics should not be mixed. It is Bhutia’s personal decision and we respect that,” Randhir Singh said.

Randhawa said Bhutia did what he felt was right but for him, participating in the relay was an honour, which he would not like to miss. “Whoever takes what stance is completely up to them. I think Olympics stands for peace and harmony and politics should not be allowed to mingle with sport.

Former footballer Chuni Goswami felt Bhutia did the right thing by standing up for a cause that he believed in. “Bhaichung has done a great job. He feels for the Tibetans who have been oppressed and persecuted. And he feels all the more about the issue, as he is a Sikkimese and a Buddhist himself,” Goswami said.

“I also do not subscribe to the view that sportspersons should not get involved in such political issues. Politics is a way of life, and you can’t ignore it,” he added.

While former Davis Cup captain Jaidip Mukherjee, swimmer Bula Chaudhary and hockey legend Gurbux Singh stressed on the point that politics should be kept away from the sporting arena.

“...one needs to remember what happened in Moscow Olympics, 1980 and at Los Angeles in the next edition of the mega event four years later. The Moscow boycott triggered the counter-boycott in Los Angeles. There is no end to such things, and the only casualty is sports,” warned Gurbux.

Bula felt Bhutia’s decision was a result of Sikkim’s proximity to Tibet and the emotional chord that the Tibetan movement strikes in the north eastern state.