India’s first female shot put athlete, who has qualified for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic, is barred from taking her own coach and her husband along with her. The Olympic is about to start in a fortnight.
A 25-year-old athlete from Punjab, Manpreet, in 2015 shattered a national record in the shot put that lived for 18 years. The Patiala-based shot putter had thrown 17.96 meters in her second attempt to claim the gold medal, a hat-trick of titles at the National Open.
Now it is learnt that Manpreet denied that she has been denied permission for her coach Karamjeet Singh to travel with her to Rio for a bizarre reason.
“You won’t win a medal, hence what’s the point of sending a coach with you?” a senior athletics federation of India official told Manpreet.
“I was immediately taken aback by the statement. I mean, who am I representing here? I’m trying to win a medal for me and my country, not just for myself. ”
I have a daughter of four years, who is alone at home; why would I go all the way to Rio just to participate? I felt extremely bad because the official doesn’t know the importance of my coach going with me. They should understand that I can’t go there and train alone for 10 days,” she is quoted as saying by the website.
With Manpreet Kaur’s husband not travelling with her, there is a direct threat to her preparations in Rio as shot put requires lifting a lot of weights and the athlete needs to be trained and guided in a proper way by his or her coach during training. As the federation has denied the permission to sponsor Karamjeet’s trip to Rio, has decided to visit on his own finances by August 10, five days after the Games begin.
“I sincerely request AFI and the Sports Ministry to allow my coach to travel with me as the results will be there to see. I also don’t want to be injured during wrong training before the event. This will affect our athletics and women’s shot put’s future adversely,” she said.