She was robbed of a shot at gold due to poor ring-side calls in her semi-final bout
L. Sarita Devi cried standing beside bronze medalist Vietnam's Thi Duyen Luu after she refused her bronze medal during the medal ceremony for the women's light 60-kilogram division boxing at the 17th Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea. Photo: AP
Incheon: The organising committee of Asian Games on Thursday said that Indian boxer L Sarita Devi's refusal to accept her bronze medal during the ceremony was "regretful and against the spirit of sportsmanship". The committee said the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) will decide the matter now.
"The matter has gone to the working group of the Olympic Council of Asia who would decide on the matter now," said the organising committee's deputy secretary general, Cheon-taik Son, at the media briefing.
Light weight woman boxer Devi was robbed of a shot at gold due to poor ring-side calls by the judges in her semi-final bout against her South Korean opponent Jina Park on September 30.
Devi accepted her bronze medal by hand and hung it around the neck of silver medallist Park before leaving the podium.
"The working group of OCA would decide on the matter and it also depends on the athlete," said Son.
"It's very regretful this has happened and against the goal of Asian unity we had set ourselves for ahead of the Games. It was also against the spirit of sportsmanship and the action showed disrespect to other athletes. It was a very unfortunate incident," he said.
"We have ensured that there's no such thing as home advantage in these Games. Still boxing is a very subjective sport. The spectators might see blood on a boxer's face but it could be different from the judges' count of scoring punches."
"There have been a lot of protests in boxing but no formal complaints have been lodged. We have written to AIBA. It's unfortunate that it happened in a game where a Korean was involved," Son said.
It has been learnt that the OCA is very unhappy over the incident and after a meeting of its working group, a strongly worded formal letter is being sent to the head of the Indian Games contingent Adille Sumariwalla. The boxer has visually protested over what she perceived as injustice to her and the boxing coach, G S Sandhu, too lodged a written protest, which was rejected by the boxing authorities.
The surprising fact, though, is that no word has come from either the Indian Olympic Association or the Indian contingent. Son indicated he expected a protest to be received from the IOA. "I understand a protest is being lodged by IOA," he said.
Sumariwalla, however, denied it and said his primary concern was to see that Sarita Devi and Sandhu, who had signed the protest letter against the judges, do not get a life ban. "My priority is to see that Sarita and the coach don't get banned for life," he said.
( Source : PTI )
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