HRD Standing Committee against sending no-hopers to Olympics

New Delhi, Dec 18 (UNI) Sports Ministry's decision to prune the jumbo Asian Games contingent may not have amused the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) but the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development too believes that there is no point in sending no-hopers to international events only to be humiliated.

In its 185th report on ''Promotion of Sports in India'', the Committee made it clear that India should be selective and only those athletes, who have realistic chances of doing well, should be sent to international events.

There was no point in competing just for the sake of it and cutting a sorry figure, the Committee, which has Janardan Dwivedi as its chairman, said.

''Many developing countries have identified only a few games and concentrated their efforts on the selected games only. The Committee notes that we participate in majority of the events more as a customary practice, irrespective of our chances for medals in international events. The result is always poor and we start blaming our sportspersons.

''The fault lies in our planning. We need to concentrate on those sports in which India has shown potentials and can do better,'' the report said.

With the 2008 Beijing Olympics now topping the agenda, India should consider sending only the medal hopefuls, it said.

''The Committee therefore, recommends that our participation in international events, particularly the Olympics, should be restricted to those disciplines in which we have the competence of international level to win medals.

''It would be better not to participate than participating and losing in all the games,'' it added.

Instead, India should host foreign teams in those events to raise its standard to the international level before going out to compete.

''It should not mean that we stop playing other games; we, in fact, should continue to play other games in the country and invite foreign teams to India to participate in competitions for providing the much-needed exposure to our players.

''When a discipline achieves certain standard, we may put that in the Olympic category,'' the report read.

UNI AY SAM DS1416