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Kalmadi puts on brave face

Last Updated 01 July 2013, 18:38 IST

It is perhaps an irony that when his home town gets down to host its biggest sporting event yet, Suresh Kalmadi won’t be there to oversee its conduct.

Kalmadi lost the last sporting post he was holding when Qatar’s Dahlan Al Hamad wrested the reins of the Asian Athletic Association here on Monday.

For the man who once held a tight grip over the Indian sports officialdom while casting his ambitious glance across Asia as well as the world, it might have come as a bitter pill even though he tried to put on a brave face.

“I have no issues today and I congratulate Al Hamad for being elected president,” Kalmadi told a TV channel in New Delhi, but he refused to address the waiting reporters in Pune. “I am rather relieved that I will be able to work at the grassroots level in athletics.”

Kalmadi’s reign had almost ended when he was forced to step aside from functioning as the Indian Olympic Association chief. Various scams related to the Commonwealth Games of 2010 had eroded his power and he could not contest the IOA elections too, in December last year.

Having spent 10 months in jail after being arrested for alleged corruption related to the Games, Kalmadi found unable to muster enough support while pressure mounted on the international bodies to turn its back on the veteran administrator.

Having quit as the Athletics Federation of India president a few years ago, the AAA president’s post was the only rein Kalmadi was holding and he fought till the end to protect his territory on his home turf. But there were other forces too at work against him, underlined by the seven invalid votes at the elections.

The former air force pilot who dreamt big had fulfilled parts of it, by hosting the Afro-Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games was not counting on these external forces. And despite his bold comments, it remains to be seen how the 69-year-old reshapes himself as an administrator at the grassroots level.

As for now, he has to rest content with the honorary life-president’s post, which is expected to come his way on Tuesday when the new AAA Council meets.

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(Published 01 July 2013, 18:38 IST)

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