OCA may not accept IOA’s request to extend July 15 deadline to provide details of country’s Asian Games wrestling team
Posted Date – 11:07 PM, Mon – 6/19/23
OCA may not accept IOA’s request to extend July 15 deadline to provide details of country’s Asian Games wrestling team
New Delhi: The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) may not accept a request from the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) to extend the July 15 deadline to provide details of the country’s wrestling teams for the Asian Games.
This means that wrestlers protesting against the WFI president will have to show up to poorly prepared trials as they have had little time to prepare due to the protracted protest.
The Asian Games are scheduled to open in Hangzhou, China, on September 23, and the IOA has until July 15 to submit a list of participating athletes.
Protesting wrestlers including Vinesh Phogat, Bajrang Punia and Sakshi Malik want to get ready for tryouts and seek more time to be in good physical and mental shape. They asked the athletic department to hold tryouts in August.
On Friday, the IOA contacted the OCA on behalf of the wrestlers.
A source with knowledge of the developments said it would be difficult for the OCA to allow the IOA to delay submitting player names until August, as requested by the six protesting wrestlers.
“The OCA is managing 45 countries and 40 sports in the Asian Games. It will be very difficult to agree to the IOA’s request to extend the deadline for wrestlers by almost a month and a half.
“Let’s see what happens. OCA is still being worked on. If it’s a 4-5 day issue, that’s not a problem, but a 40-45 day delay is not feasible,” the source said.
The IOC has asked all national federations to submit their final lists of selected Asian Games players by June 30.
“(Giving too much) time is a tricky thing. The Asian Games will start on September 23, how can you postpone the registration for one and a half months.” However, the source said that since the request was made by the National Olympic Committee Will ask, “OCA will have to deal with” this.
However, the source added that OCA “did not want to get involved” in the local politics of a country-specific sport.
“It (OCA) is an Asian organization and it has to abide by the rules of the Asian Commission. If the OCA accepts one country’s request, then 45 other countries will ask the question and ask the OCA to fulfill their request as well.” IOA The ad hoc body is keen to run the trial in the last week of June in order to deliver names to the IOA ahead of the June 30 deadline for all National Sports Federations (NSFs).
