Sports Ministry sanctions names of 634 athletes for Asian Games; Achinta Sheuli, women's sabre team fail to make cut

Published at :August 25, 2023 at 7:36 PM

Modified at :January 13, 2024 at 6:23 PM

IOA initially recommended a list of 850 athletes

Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports (MYAS) has today (July 25th) sanctioned 634 athletes across 38 sporting disciplines for participation in the upcoming Asian Games, who met the set selection criteria, against the 850 athletes recommended by the Indian Olympic Association (IOA). A total of 572 athletes participated in the last edition of Asian Games in 2018 where India returned with 70 medals including 16 Golds.

However the dilemma surrounding the selection of athletes for the upcoming Hangzhou Asian Games Games continues to moves on. Indian men’s weightlifting tea, comprising of Commonwealth Games 2022 gold medalist and National Games champion N. Ajith Kumar alongside several other sports personalities from modern pentathlon, triathlon and taekwondo have been dropped from the list of recommendations provided by various NOCs to Sports Ministry.

A report in TOI mentioned, “All the rejected athletes failed to fulfill the sports ministry criteria which states that athletes performance in individual events during the last 12 months should not fall below the performance achieved by the eighth position holder in 2018 Asian Games.”

By taking the above criteria into consideration, in weightlifting only Mirabai Chanu and Bindyarani Devi have received clearance to take part in Asian Games while Achinta and Ajith failed to make the cut. For the team events entire triathlon and taekwondo contingent were rejected.

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The men’s handball team has been in good form in the past year having reached the semi-finals of IHF Emerging Nations Tournament in Europe. But the Ministry took into the consideration the position secured in the Asian Men’s Handball Championships 2022 where India finished 15th. In tennis out of the 12 member squad, Sasikumar Mukund, Sahaja Yamalapalli and Vaidehi Chaudhari were the ones to be excluded.

India’s first fencer to qualify for Olympics Bhavani Devi will play only play in the singles event in sabre. She clinched the bronze medal in the recently concluded Asian Fencing Championships and in the following month reached the Round of 64 as well in the World Championships. However, the sabre women’s team did not receive the nod which consisted of Josna Christy, Jagmeet Kaur, and Rishika Khajuria.

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