Believing in the mantra that age is no bar, Vijender Singh, who will be leading the Indian boxing contingent to London Olympics said that he can climb the podium since he is much younger than many boxers who had been world champions at a much older age. “If they can achieve it, why can’t I? I am just 26 and raring to go,” said the boxer, according to a report in The Times Of India.
Vijender who is training in Patiala, says there is no time for distractions as he follows a punishing schedule for ‘mission Olympics’. “With each passing day I am getting closer to my Olympic dream and my aspiration of clinching another medal.”
Following his present form, the handsome hunk can go one step further from his previous bronze in 2008. “Today I only concentrate on boxing and devote most of the time for training,” he said.
According to a report in Hindustan Times, the Asian All Star later this month in Almaty will be the last opportunity for India’s relay quartet to achieve their London dreams. But the 4x100m men’s team has already fumbled with the ‘finish line’ nowhere in sight.
The charismatic performance at the Delhi Commonwealth Games — they clinched a bronze, a first in the CWG — is history. Now, the likes of Krishna Kumar Rane, Shameer Mon, Manikanand Raj, BG Nagraj, Alameen and Abdul Najeeb Qureshi are faced with an embarrassing situation.
This despite their enigmatic Ukrainian coach, Dmytro Vanyaikin, still being the guiding force. It is strange that Vanyaikin’s methods, which produced amazing results in 2010, are not able to inspire the athletes less than two years after the mega event. Daggers are out and Vanyaikin’s ‘genius’ is being questioned. “Why can’t he prove himself in 2012?” asked a senior Indian coach. Prior to the CWG, the sprint team had a 45-day training stint in Ukraine to ‘polish’ their skills. But after the doping scandal, involving the Asian Games gold medal-winning women’s 4x400 team, broke in 2011, the sports ministry banned all exposure-cum-training trips to the east European country, long blamed for India’s doping mess, says the report in HT.
Meanwhile a report in The Hindu says that questions about the jurisdiction of the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) to test an athlete not actively associated with a camp or participating in a meet came up before a disciplinary panel when the NADA brought forward a case of “refusal” by Manjeet Kaur on Tuesday.
The three-member panel, headed by retired judge Dinesh Dayal, reserved its order at the end of a 90-minute hearing at which Manjeet was present.
For a ‘first' of its kind, in out-of-competition testing by the NADA, the case posed many doubts to the panel members who in turn sought answers from the NADA officials. Neither party was represented by a lawyer.
Manjeet, national record holder in the 400 metres, had ‘refused' to accept a notice for sample collection on April 21 last, during the Federation Cup meet at Patiala, according to the charge levelled by the NADA. If the charge is proved she can face a suspension of up to two years.
