Power failure at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium shattered the hopes of Indian runners to get a berth in the upcoming Rio Olympics this year.
The venue was hosting the Indian Grand Prix on Sunday without any electricity, which led the results being recorded manually. But since, hand timings are not considered valid for record purposes, they won’t be counted for Olympic.
The event started with a power failure and despite of having generators installed, there was no staff to operate those as it was a Sunday and they were having their day-off.
According to the hand timings, four national records were improved which would have guaranteed two athletes — Srabani Nanda and Amiya Malik, both sprinters from Odisha — getting a berth at the Rio Olympics, but ultimately they were left disgruntled knowing that their records will not be considered valid.
The Delhi Athletics Association has pointed its fingers to the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and stadium administration for this fiasco.
Power cut is common problem in sporting venues across India. Many national and international tournaments have been halted for a while in due to power cuts.
The Logical Indian urges SAI to take a look into the matter, because such cases often happen in India. These kind of instances taint the name of Indian sports in the international circuit, which is very shameful for the country.
