NEW DELHI: The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) will be finalizing a list of approximately 900 members, including players and officials by June 30 that will be travelling for the Asian Games in Indonesia from August 18 to September, Press Trust of India reports.
From a provisional list of 2,370, the IOA will be trimming down the list in consultation with the Sports Ministry.
“As per provisional list, there are 1938 athletes, 399 officials (including support staff), eight from IOA, seven from Sports Ministry and 18 from Sports Authority of India (SAI) in the list of 2370. We have time till June 30 to prune the list,” IOA president NarinderBatra was quoted as saying by the news wire.
“The long list for the 18th Asian Games has also been submitted to the organizers of the event. We shall shortlist the final contingent at the conclusion of final selections by various federations,” IOA president Dhruv Batra said after the body’s executive council meeting held in the city on Saturday.
On this instance, the IOA has created a set selection criteria to choose members of the contingent, which has to be approved by the ministry. IOA also shared the qualification criteria with respective sports federations.
“For individual sport, the criteria is a top-six finish and in team sport it is a top-eight finish (as per last Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea) will be eligible for selection,” Batra added.
However, the IOA President added that their performance analysis team will also take into account and give an opportunity to those athletes who would have shown significant progress.
“This is the criteria set by us and athletes need to meet this criteria. Athletes need to earn the Indian jersey,” he said further.
When it comes de-recognised or suspended sports federations (NSFs) such as in taekwondo, golf, gymnastics and archery, an ad-hoc committee is responsible to select the teams and a scrutiny committee will resolve any dispute in selection matters, PTI further reports.
“Indian Golf Union (IGU) have a meeting for amendment of their constitution on June 6. The IOA will have its observer. If all goes well, then IGU can select its squad for the Asian Games,” IOA general secretary Rajeev Mehta said.
He also declared the creation of an Associate Category within the IOA for disciplines which are not part of Olympics, Commonwealth Games and Asian Games programmes.
“There are some sports federations which are registered with OCA (Olympic Council of Asia) but not with the IOA. Those will be part of the associate category,” Mehta noted. However, such bodies will not be granted any voting rights within the IOA.
