Paris Olympic medallist Aman disqualified from World Ch'ship for being overweight
New Delhi, Sep 14 (PTI): Olympic medallist Aman Sehrawat was on Sunday disqualified from the World Championship in Zagreb after being found overweight, dealing a massive blow to Indian contingent at the prestigious tournament.
In what turned to be an embarrassing development, Aman, who won a bronze at Paris Olympics last year, was found overweight by 1.7kg during the weigh-in ahead of the competition in the men's freestyle 57kg.
"It's unfortunate and surprising that Aman could not maintain his weight. He was overweight by 1700 grams when he stood in the weight scale. This is not acceptable, actually. How did he get so much extra weight is beyond us," a source within the Indian contingent told PTI from Zagreb.
According to UWW regulations published in 2023, a two-kg weight tolerance is allowed for World Cup, UWW Ranking Series Tournaments and for the international tournaments.
However, tournaments like World Championships and Olympics do not have such provision.
What is surprising that Aman had reached Zagreb, Croatia, on August 25 for an acclimatisation and training camp along with other Indian wrestlers and had around 20 days to maintain and make weight.
The 22-year-old Aman, who trains at the famed Chhattrasal stadium, was one of the strong medal contenders among Indians.
This is second disqualification incident involving an Indian at the World Championships in less than a month as Neha Sangwan (women's 59kg) was ousted from the U20 Worlds in Samokov, Bulgaria in August after weighing 600gms more than the permissible limit.
Neha was also a part of India's senior World Championship squad in Zagreb but the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) had not only dropped her from the team but also suspended her for two years due to her "consistent weight management issues".
This is, though, first overweight incident involving a star Indian player after Vinesh Phogat was disqualified from the Paris Olympics ahead of the women's 50kg final. She was found overweight by 100g hours before her gold medal bout.
"You know, the government has spent at least 7-8 lakh on each wrestler selected for the World Championship in Zagreb. The stay expense was at least Euro 140 during the two-week training camp and it's Euro 200 during the tournament.
"It is the wrestler's responsibility to maintain weight. There has to be some explanation. Almost 2kg more than the permissible weight is unbelievable," said a coach with the Indian contingent.
It remains to be if seem if WFI hands some punishment to Aman like it did to Neha for a similar transgression or let him off due to his star status.
Aman has competed only in one international tournament since winning bronze in Paris Games. He secured a bronze at Ulaanbaatar Open in June this year, losing to Mexico's Roman Bravo-Young in the semifinals.
He beat Turkiye's Bekir Keser in the bronze play-off.
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Ex-minister Ramanath Rai hits out at BJP leader Ashoka for ‘irresponsible’ comments on KC Venugopal
Mangaluru: Congress leader and former minister B Ramanath Rai slammed BJP leader R Ashoka for calling AICC General Secretary KC Venugopal an agent of the party high command, and asked if the general secretary and other office-bearers in the BJP were commission agents too.
Rai, who addressed a press meet at the Congress office in the city on Friday, expressed fury over the recent comments of the BJP leader that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah was presenting himself in a shameless manner in public life. Ashoka, who is also Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly, had said that the Congress government had ‘broken every previous record on corruption-related controversies’.
“Ashoka has spoken with sheer ignorance and displays his lack of maturity, as he often does while facing the media. KC Venugopal has been working at organization of the party and it is unbecoming of Ashoka to criticize Venugopal as he did,” Rai told reporters.
“Being in a responsible position, how acceptable is it for Ashoka to pass disrespectful, random comments about another leader who also holds a responsible position? If KC Venugopal is indeed an agent of the party high command, what should we consider BJP leaders to be? Are they brokers?” he asked
Commenting on Ashoka’s allegations of corruption in the Congress government in Karnataka, Rai pointed out, “The KSRTC land was sold to private parties when he (Ashoka) was transport minister. We can find several such cases across the state, which need to be probed.”
The former minister, however, refused to comment on the incident that occurred at Mangaluru airport during CM Siddaramaiah’s visit to the city recently.
Former mayors Ashraf and Shashidhar Hegde, Congress activists Vishwas Kumar Das, Subhodaya Alva, Shabeer, Baby Kundar, Padmanabha, Nazeer Bajal and Prem were present.
