Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore’s silver medal in Athens Olympics motivated hundreds of shooters to take up the sport long considered elitist but while the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) was spot on in giving Kolkata-based rifle shooter, Joydeep Karmakar, a slot in the Olympic-bound squad, as he has done everything right in the past decade, Rathore's exclusion is galling to say the least, writes Hindustan Times.
On Sunday, as the NRAI announced the squad for the London Olympic Games, the name of the Athens Olympic silver-medallist was missing. The federation could well have given the Colonel the opportunity to do an Athens encore, but instead preferred a young shooter from Punjab, Heena Sidhu, to don India colours at London, writes HT, adding that Rathore is a multiple World Cup medallist and has withstood the pressure on the biggest stage and motivated a whole generation of shooters. But when the federation was presented with a gilt-edged opportunity to select him, it let him, and the country, down.
“To compete in the Olympics one requires nerves of steel, a resolve cemented by years of experience and a temperament, which comes with hours of training. A certain Abhinav Bindra or a Rathore will tell you about the pains and pangs of competing at the highest level. Both of them put in years of hard work before they achieved greatness. Sidhu is young and energetic, has the talent to excel at the top, but, perhaps, this is not her Olympics. She could have been a reserve for the future, a flame to ignite the country's aspiration in Rio de Janeiro or beyond. But, this should have been Rathore's Games,” argues the paper.
In athletics Indians had a bad second day at the Asian indoor athletics championships at Hangzhou, China. P.J. Vinod finished last in heptathlon. Jithin Thomas came fifth in high jump, whereas Surya Loganathan came eighth in the women’s 3000 meter.
By Indian Sports News
