Athletics Federation hits back at Jaisha for making groundless accusations
Marathon runner O P Jaisha had claimed on Monday that the Indian officials failed to provide her with water during the run. However, the Athletics Federation of India has strongly dismissed these allegations claiming that Jaisha and Kavita Raut had earlier declined to use personalized drinks.
On Monday, Jaisha, who was one of India's entries in the Marathon event, had said, "Though there were officials from all other countries to provide refreshments to their runners at designated points -after every 2.5 km -there was no one from India and our desks were empty next to the country's name and flag," reported ToI.
However, the Athletics Federation has dismissed these claims in a statement released to the media. The full statement is as follows:
The Athletics Federation of India is extremely disturbed to see a section of the media carry inaccurate and misleading information regarding our athlete,
The AFI
In addition, the organisers installed one medical booth per every 5km on the marathon course, and two ambulances accompanied the runners - one ahead and one behind the group of marathoners. This was also organised in Rio as per the rules and regulations and there was no reason to complain.
As far as the planning of the team management for the race is concerned, each team is allowed to keep their own personalised drinks on the booths, marked in a colour as per the choice of the team and athlete. Accordingly, as per the rule, on the night ahead of the women's marathon race, the Indian Team Manager carried 16 empty bottles, eight each for Jaisha and the other Indian women runner, Kavita Raut, and visited the duo and their coach, foreign expert Dr Nikolai Snesarev in their room and asked them to provide their choice of personalised drink which would then be sealed in their presence and handed over to the organisers for installing them on the booth along with a placard as per the requirement of the athlete.
In this case, the two athletes, Ms Jaisha and Ms Raut declined the offer and informed the Indian Team Manager that they didn't require
Therefore, it is an incorrect statement made by Ms O.P. Jaisha that the Indian officials accompanying the team did not provide her water or any other form of tonic drinks.
Also, as per the information shared by the
Further, it is also informed that Ms Jaisha had declined to use
The AFI would also like to inform that Ms Jaisha had qualified only for the marathon event for Rio 2016 Olympic Games, and hence she was not eligible to run in the 1500m race as claimed in her interview. This information is also incorrect and misleading.
The AFI is disappointed to note that all these facts have not been put into
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