Bajrang Punia, Vinesh Phogat and Sakshi Malik express shock over IOA chief PT Usha’s statement | More sports News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: Indian Olympic Association’s (IOA) president P T Usha, a celebrated track and field athlete with over 100 medals at national and international events, on Thursday, criticised the wrestlers for going public with their protest demanding filing of an FIR and arrest of sidelined Wrestling Federation of India’s (WFI) president, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.
Usha said the sit-in agitation by wrestlers at Jantar Mantar has brought bad publicity to the country. They should have first approached the IOA’s Athletes Commission with their grievance before staging a protest, which entered its fifth day on Thursday, she said. Usha also called for the wrestlers to be “disciplined”.

“IOA has an athletes commission in place. Instead of hitting the streets, these wrestlers should’ve come to us. The athletes should be disciplined. If their problems were real, they should’ve come to our athletes commission. What they are doing is not good for the image of the country. Hitting the streets is not good for Indian sports,” Usha told reporters after the IOA’s executive committee (EC) meeting here, which discussed the wrestlers’ protest and decided to form a three-member ad-hoc committee to run the WFI’s day-to-day affairs and hold its elections within 45 days of the formation of the body.

Usha expressed her disappointment over the wrestlers’ attempt to give the agitation a political colour. “Those protesting are renowned wrestlers who brought laurels to the country. They have an equal responsibility of safeguarding the interest of our sports and sportspersons and also the image of our country. However, they are sitting on dharna, asking all political parties to join them etc, is what disappoints me,” Usha added.
Shocked by her comments, the protesting wrestlers, led by Olympians Bajrang Punia, Vinesh Phogat and Sakshi Malik, hit back at Usha, demanding respect for their movement to protect the future generation of female wrestlers from facing sexual harassment.

“I am deeply shocked to hear such comments from a legendary athlete like Usha mam. We grew up idolising her and respecting her achievements. She was a role model to us. She has herself been a female athlete with such a distinguished career. How can she not understand the plight of female sportspersons who have been demanding justice and spending nights in the open sky. If she can’t respect our sentiments, we shouldn’t be respecting her. If she wants respect from us, she should also show respect towards the wrestlers’ cause. Her comment today has deeply disturbed me. It’s not like we didn’t try calling her up. I called her up on her personal number. She didn’t answer my call. She doesn’t have respect for athletes’ feelings,” said Vinesh.

Bajrang said, “Recently, Usha mam had tweeted that some people tried to illegally occupy her academy land by resorting to hooliganism. Tell me, wasn’t the nation’s image getting tarnished that time?” If being a Rajya Sabha MP nominated on the BJP ticket, she can’t save her academy land, how could you expect normal wrestlers like us to wage and win a fight against (Brij Bhushan) Singh. Usha mam has disappointed our whole community with her statement.”
Earlier, IOA’s joint secretary and acting CEO, Kalyan Chaubey, also slammed the wrestlers for protesting on the streets. “We are yet to get a report from our (seven-member fact-finding) committee. But these protests are not good for the image of the country. We are the fifth largest economy in the world and sport is a medium through which you reach all parts of the world. This protest is not helping India as a nation. In this day and age of social media, imagine what this does to a country’s image? You’re not fighting against one federation or its president, you’re hurting the nation’s image.”

We gave every protesting athlete to present their case: Thakur
Union sports minister Anurag Singh Thakur spoke on the wrestlers’ current protest for the first time on Thursday. He said the welfare of sports and athletes has always been a priority for this government. “A few wrestlers are protesting at Jantar Mantar. I had spent 12 hours with them — seven hours on the first day and five hours the next day (in January). I had listened to all their grievances, held a press conference at 2-2.30 at night, formed a committee after talking to them. They had asked to add a member and gave Babita Phogat’s name, and we added her to the committee. We wanted an impartial probe,” Thakur said at a press conference in Shimla.
“Whoever wanted to present their version before the oversight committee, was given a chance to do so, there were no restrictions. We even increased the timeline of the probe, there were 14 meetings. Whoever wanted to come, came. We gave a chance to every athlete to present his/her case,” he added.