Olympic medalist Saina Nehwal has took to her social media account and slammed the Badminton Association of India (BAI) over the scheduling of the trials for the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games which started on Friday at the Indira Gandhi National Stadium.
“Surprised to see all the articles stating that I don’t want to defend my CWG title and my Asiad medal. I’m just not participating in the trials because I just got back from 3 weeks of Europe events and according to the schedule there’s Asian Championships @BAI_Media @ianuragthakur,” Saina Nehwal tweeted about her absence from the trials.
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The BAI had scheduled the selection trials from April 15-20. Every athlete hhas to take part in the trials in order to stand a chance to compete in these prestigious organisations for India. However, the likes of Lakshya Sen, Kidambi Srikanth and PV Sindhu already qualified for participation because of them being in the top 15 of the world rankings. Saina Nehwal, who is a former world number 1 had notified the association that she will be missing the trials because of her packed schedule.
“In 2 weeks’ time, As a senior player to participate in back to back events nonstop is impossible and it’s risking injuries, such short notice is not possible. I’ve conveyed this to BAI but there has been no response from them. It seems like they’re happy to put me out of CWG n Asiad, ” Saina Nehwal said.
The players who will be forming the National Core group in these tournaments will be the top-8 men’s and women’s singles players, Top-6 men’s and women’s doubles pairs and 4 mixed doubles pairs along with the players who qualified automatically. World number 23 Saina Nehwal already had a packed schedule in front of her with participation in the German Open from March 8 to March 13, All England Championships from March 16 to March 20 and Swiss Open from March 22 to March 27.
“I wish we had a better understanding of how to manage a schedule and not announce events with 10 days’ notice. I’m world no.23 currently and I almost beat the world no.1 Akane in All England. One loss at India open and BAI tries to pull me down. Shocking @Media_SAI, ” Nehwal further added.
It is not pleasing to see the kind of treatment being given to a former Olympic medalist who has three Commonwealth Games gold medals one in 2010 and two in 2018 along with one silver and one bronze each. The 32-year-old has also won two bronze medals, one in the team event in 2014 in Incheon and one in individual singles in 2018 in Jakarta.
The 2022 Commonwealth Games and 2022 Asian Games will take place in Birmingham from July 28 and September 10 in Hangzhou respectively. All the Indian fans would certainly be hoping for Saina’s name in the Indian squad so that the talented shuttler gets a chance to defend her CWG title again.
(Inputs from ANI)
