BENGALURU: The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president, Narinder Batra, called the Commonwealth Games (CWG) ‘a waste of time and money’. In an interview with this newspaper on the sidelines of the FIBA Women’s Asia Cup, Batra explained his stance over shooting’s exclusion apart from expanding on why India needed to start focusing more on World Cups and World Championships rather than competitions like the CWG. Excerpts:
On shooting’s exclusion from the 2022 CWG
We are definitely upset over the way shooting has been taken out of the Games. I know it’s not a mandatory sport. But it has been part of it the last 40-50 years without a break... There has to be some rationale behind it. What have you gotten in place of shooting? Women’s cricket. You have essentially replaced a sport offering 50-60 medals with a sport where there are three medals. What’s the logic?
On the idea behind a boycott of the Games
The reason I’m given is financial. If you are so tight on money, do we really need to have these Games (in the first place)? I think ‘boycott’ is the wrong word. I am not a person who says boycott. My thing would be very clearly... there are many countries who don’t participate in the CWG. What’s the competition level? We win 60-odd medals in CWG and win two in the Olympics. Better focus on events (World Cup, World Championships and so on) happening around that period where you get better competition.
We need to be focusing on the Olympics or World Cups. These are events that add value, add points (to world rankings). They give you quota places at the Olympics. CWG doesn’t give you anything. So why are we even doing it? I think this reminds me of slavery.
On what happens now
The message has to jointly go from the IOA Executive Council and the sports ministry. I wrote in my letter it was going to be a political decision. The government or some other person may not agree with me but I am of the opinion that this competition is actually a waste of time and money. We should be more focussed on where we get better competition. Let November 14th come (IOA and Commonwealth Games Federation meeting to discuss shooting), you will know everything. I am not declaring anything before that.
On federations not following the letter of law
We are asking them to correct their statutes. IOA has a simple condition — one state, one vote. That’s what we have been asking them to do. And you cannot have public servants as voters... the sport has to be kept independent of government control. That’s the basic ethics. There has to be proper elections, representation at state level. (With respect to EFI), they can do whatever they want. This is a democracy. If they hold elections, we don’t recognise them.
On agenda at the upcoming annual general meeting
The discussion would revolve around Olympics, see if there are shortcomings. If yes, how do we sort that out and so on? We are putting up ‘India House’ in Tokyo. We want to hold the 2023 IOC Congress in India, so there will be a discussion on that. But the Olympics may have more weightage this time.
On target for the 2020 Games
We want to be in double digits. I am not giving a number, it could be 10, or 15, or anything. We just want to be in double digits because we have never done that and it’s been so long. We are working on addressing that.
On bidding for multi-discipline Games
We are bidding for the 2026 Youth Olympics. We don’t want to host CWG. Olympics yes and Asian Games maybe. The process for Youth Olympics will begin in 2021. For the Olympics, sometime around 2025. We have given our expression of interest. We have to our infrastructure, do our homework.