JOIN USWorld Championship bronze-medallist Bajrang Kumar has been left "heartbroken" after the SAI refused to bear his expenses for the Dave Schultz Memorial International tournament in Colorado Springs, saying the grappler can travel to the USA "at no cost to government".
The last-minute refusal by the Sports Authority of India to sanction Bajrang's travel, boarding and lodging expenses for the fortnight long training-cum-competition programme has robbed the promising grappler a chance to compete against the world's best under a new weight category, keeping Commonwealth Games, Asian Games and World Championships in mind this year.
Bajrang, who was to compete in 61kg category, got the shocking news from his federation hours before leaving for the airport to join his other teammates, who flew by an early morning (2am) flight today to the USA accompanied by chief national coach Vinod Kumar.
The squad comprises Amit Kumar Dahiya, Sandeep Tomar, Rahul Aware, Amit Dhankhar, Praveen Rana, Pawan Kumar, Satyavrat Kadian and Rohit Patel for the January 30 to February 1 tournament and Bajrang's name was there in the first list.
Efforts to get Bajrang on the next available plane to US did not yield any result as SAI DG Jiji Thomson did not change the stance. Bajrang's coach Yashvir Singh held talks with Thomson in the evening but the end result was disappointment for him and his ward.
The meeting was arranged after SAI secretary Neeraj Kansal wrote a letter to Thomson to consider his case under "special circumstances".
"I came to know from the federation that I won't be travelling to the USA. Everything was ready, my visa and tickets and it was heartbreaking news for me. I was hoping that the meeting may bring a good news for me but my coach told me I am not going since my case has been rejected by SAI. It's really disappointing," Bajrang told PTI.
Bajrang's tickets were cancelled last night after WFI got the letter from the SAI
An official in the know of the development said that WFI had initially drawn a list of 12 grapplers for the US tourney which was later pruned to 10 and finally to eight after SAI refused to bear the cost of wrestlers, who did not participate in the Nationals and Commonwealth Championships last year.
"Out of the 12 grapplers, Sandeep, Rahul, Dhankhar, Praveen, Pawan, Satyavrat and Rohit participated in the Nationals and Commonwealth championships," the official said.
"Sushil Kumar, Bajrang, Yogeshwar Dutt, Amit Dahiya and Narsingh Yadav did not participate. After SAI's refusal to fund these athletes, WFI dropped the names of Sushil, Yogeshwar and Narsingh. It wouldn't have looked good not to send those players who participated throughout the year in all tournaments.
"Sushil opted out of travelling as he wanted to spend some more time with his newborns, Yogeshwar due to his Haryana police examination papers and Narsingh due to his training issues. Sushil and Yogeshwar's names could be considered at a later stage for the US tourney as they are Olympic medallists and SAI won't be having any problem in considering their case," said the official.
He said post FILA's re-jigging of weight classes, Colarado Springs tournament will have eight weight classes and SAI was of the view that they would send only one wrestler for each category.
"WFI submitted a fresh list of grapplers to SAI which comprised nine names including Dahiya and Bajrang. Both did not participate in nationals held in Kolkata but WFI persisted with their names. SAI stuck to its stand of allowing eight grapplers and finally WFI included the name of Dahiya into the list and left out Bajrang.
"However, they requested SAI to consider Bajrang's name as he is a bronze winner in the world championship and a bright medal prospect for India in the CWG and Asian Games," the official added.
A WFI official, on the condition of anonymity, said this was the first time SAI had acted in such a manner.
"Sports ministry had allocated Rs 13 crore as wrestling budget for the financial year 2013-2014 to the SAI and the sports body has enough money left from our budget to send a player of Bajrang's repute to the US tourney. This is not fair. This tournament costs 4-5 lakh per person. WFI can't bear this much amount on its own," he said.