Dahlan Jumaan Al-Hamad, the newly-elected president of the Asian Athletics Association, emphasised that the competition and development programs of the federation need to be reviewed and strategic marketing is required to attract corporate sponsors.
India was deprived of at least three medals at the Asian Cross Country Championships in Bahrain due to an apparent goof-up by the Athletics Federation of India which did not field the required number of participants to be considered for team standings. India fielded three athletes each in senior men, senior women, junior men and junior women categories in the championships and except in case of the first, the country should have won a team bronze each in the remaining three as they secured the third highest aggregate points. But strangely, India did not get any medal in the championships held in Manama. Sources told PTI this was due to the reason that each country was to field four runners in each event though only the top three would be considered for counting of aggregate points for team results. India fielded only three runners in each event. Points are counted according to the position of each runner like one point for the winner, two for the second-place finisher and three for the third. The team which gets the lowest aggregate point will get the gold and so on.
World athletics' governing body decided on Friday to maintain its doping ban on all Russian athletes, Sky News reported, quoting unnamed sources, leaving the country's hopes of competing in the Rio Olympics dependent on Olympic chiefs giving special dispensation at a meeting next week. The Council of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) was meeting in Vienna to decide whether to lift the ban after hearing from a task force that significant doping problems still existed in Russia. The suspension was first imposed in November and extended in March. A spokeswoman for Russia's athletics federation said she could not confirm the reports that the ban had been upheld.
Unfazed at being ousted from the Asian Athletics Association, scam-tainted Suresh Kalmadi said losing the presidential re-election bid to Qatar's Dahlan Jumaan Al-Hamad has actually given him a chance to work at the "grassroots" level.
The apex court-appointed Justice Rajendra Mal Lodha committee moved the Supreme Court seeking a direction to appoint former home secretary G K Pillai as an observer to guide' the Board of Control for Cricket in India in the administrative works including award of contracts, transparency norms and holding of future domestic, international and Indian Premier League matches.
A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Saturday
The absence of top stars took some sheen away but India's record-breaking medal haul and a maiden top-of-the-table finish made the just-concluded 22nd Asian Athletics Championship here a memorable one.
Russia said on Friday it is ready to do everything from a legal point of view to defend Russian athletes if they are banned from taking part in the Rio Olympics over doping allegations.
A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Wednesday.
Commonwealth Games champion Parupalli Kashyap knocked out top seed Lee Hyun Il of Korea in the men's singles opening round of the US Open Grand Prix Gold badminton tournament in Anaheim, United States.
Despite the short notice to prepare for a major meet, the 20th Asian Athletics Championships, scheduled at Pune from July 3-7, will be among the best-organised, declared Athletics Federation of India president Adille Sumariwalla in Mumbai on Friday.
'We keep climbing one step and slipping three. In 2004, our relay team was 7th in the world. Then we slipped from there. Otherwise, today our 4x400 metres relay team would have been gearing for a medal at the Rio Games.' 'If we need to compete at the world level, our thinking needs to be at world level. You can't have akhada thinking.'
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