‘Demotivating and discouraging’: Dipa Karmakar asks for clarity about rules after being omitted from Indian squad for Asian Games | Sport-others News
Dipa Karmakar is at her wit’s end trying to understand how she ended up being omitted from the Indian squad for the Asian Games despite topping the trials. “Every morning I wake up and hear different things coming in the media about the criteria applied after the trials. I was out of competition in the last 12 months and couldn’t have fulfilled the criteria in international meets, but I topped the trials and have more marks than the one who they are sending. Officially there is nothing told to me, and this is really demotivating and discouraging,” Dipa Karmakar told The Indian Express on Tuesday. “The uncertainty is difficult to handle, I wish someone officially gave some clarity,” she added.
Earlier in the day, Karmakar had tweeted about the deafening silence of the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and the Sports Minry. “On this Independence Day, I am using my freedom of speech to discuss recent events that have proven to be very demotivating and discouraging. The #AsianGames2023, an event I have eagerly anticipated for the past two years, looks further than it is,” she tweeted.
The government criteria states that athletes’ performance in individual events during the last 12 months should not be below the performance achieved the eighth position holder in the 2018 Asian Games for measurable sports.
The Tripura gymnast, who achieved a horic fourth place finish at the 2016 Rio Olympics, was excluded from the Indian squad as she didn’t fulfil the criteria of a top-eight finish in the last 12 months, according to media reports. Serving a two-year ban due to an anti-doping violation, she returned on July 11-12 for the trials. The circular, common to all federations, was sent out on July 10, but exemptions have been made to the rule, notably in team sports due to social media pressure and it hasn’t been applied uniformly across all individual sports either.
On this #IndependenceDay, I am using my freedom of speech to discuss recent events that have proven to be very demotivating and discouraging. The #AsianGames2023, an event I have eagerly anticipated for the past two years, looks further than it is. (1/N)
— Dipa Karmakar (@DipaKarmakar) August 15, 2023
Karmakar, who her coach Bisweshwar Nandi believes “will make the finals and is a medal contender if she goes, because her preparation is going good”, did enough to top the trials with an all-around score of 47.050.
“To my surprise, despite topping the national trials and meeting the @IndiaSports selection criteria, it appears that I will be deprived of the opportunity to participate in the @19thAGofficial.”
What has agitated her is lack of communication from the authorities. “Worse still, the reasons behind this decision are unknown to me and have not been communicated officially. Instead, my fellow gymnasts and I are left to read about our exclusion from the Games in the news and I simply don’t know what to make of it.”
Karmakar was surprised SAI was being so opaque. “SAI had helped me in the 2014 Commonwealth Games and 2015 World Championships when the federation wasn’t in exence. Why do they not want gymnasts to go this time?” she wondered.
She called for uniformity in applying rules.
“The hard work and sacrifice that goes into preparing for major games is rarely appreciated and instead met with uncertainty and deafening silence from Media_SAI and @IndiaSports. All I ask is for the selection criteria to be applied fairly and consently across all sports,” she wrote. “And request that the correct information be conveyed to us so that we don’t live in uncertainty. In the meanwhile, I owe it to my country to continue my training and I am hopeful that I will be joining @WeAreTeamIndia in Hangzhou next month. Jai hind!” Karmakar wrote.
The omission becomes curious because the sole gymnast selected to go, Pranati Nayak, doesn’t fulfill the criterion either, if the Asian Championships in June on the basis of which she was granted exemption from the trials, and where she finished 27th, are considered.
“The criteria have been arbitrarily applied. I have nothing against Pranati Nayak, but her June Asian Championship score in All around (44.432) or the Vault (12.733 in Qualification and 12.417 in Final) don’t meet the Asian Games Top 8 comparison (49.900 in All-around and 13.225 qualification & 12.650 Final in Vault) either. She was exempted from trials and no-one knows where her fitness is at right now. She’s a good gymnast and should go, but so should the 7 others who have been dropped. Dipa topped the trials with an all-around score of 47.050, and she remains India’s top gymnast. The Gymnastics federation experts or coaches were never consulted when applying a new rule after the trials. If they were going to consider the Asian Championship, why hold a selection trial at all? We can only request that Dipa be sent,” coach Bisweshwar Nandi said.
