The infrastructure is not up to world standards for winter sports in India and the required support is often missing. This bane of being an Indian winter sports athlete came to haunt some athletes once again with the sports ministry agreeing to send only 41 of the 76 athletes whose names were sent by Indian Olympic Association (IOA) for participation at Asian Winter Games starting in Feb.
The reason given for cutting the contingent to almost half is a long-standing circular that allows only international athletes and the ones in the top-six of individual rankings or top-eight in team rankings to be sent for such sporting events on government’s cost.
The biggest axe — in a letter issued by the ministry on Jan 2 — fell on ice hockey, snowboard and ski mountaineering disciplines with entire squads disallowed from travelling to Harbin, China, for the Feb 7 to 14 event.
“We are players and depriving (us of) this kind of opportunity is a slap on our face as well as on the future of ice hockey in Ladakh,” the Ice Hockey Federation of India said in a statement.
It pointed out that it was after thorough evaluation of their rankings that the International Ice Hockey Federation and Olympic Council of Asia had given them the invitatio.
Meanwhile, IOA president PT Usha took exception to the ministry’s decision and highlighted the lack of time to train in snow that Indian winter athletes endure should have been considered and the tough selection criteria relaxed, as had been the case while sending the Indian contingent at 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games, in 2023.
“The application of strict selection criteria, such as international participation or being among the top three rankings for individual/team events, is therefore inappropriate for winter sports. Such criteria, if applied, undermine the very purpose of promoting winter sports in the country,” Usha wrote in her letter to sports minister Mansukh Mandaviya.