Finally, after much scrutiny, the final list of the Sportspersons of Outstanding Merit has been finalised late on Friday. As highlighted by this newspaper, dope cheats and those not part of the Olympic programme have been omitted, and those on the waiting list, except one or two in men and three in women, have made the final cut. The new list is out and has quite a few additions and deletions in both men's and women's categories. The dope tainted athletes have been removed and those from non-Olympic sports, as highlighted by this newspaper, too have been removed.
What seems interesting is that some of the heavyweights who could even run for the president’s post could possibly come from this list. IOA president PT Usha is also part of the SOM list so are some big names like Abhinav Bindra, Gagan Narang, former Athletics Federation of India president Adille Sumariwalla. According to the Indian Olympic Constitution, SOMs can directly walk into elections for the posts of executive committee members and also the top posts. The only thing is that they should be part of the eight SOMs who will be elected on November 9. The filing of nominations will begin on October 27. Others have to be part of office bearers in the National Sports Federation or part of the IOA EC for one term to be eligible to contest for elections.
However, it needs to be seen who all will be eligible to vote. As of now, there are 80 names, 40 each in the men's and women’s categories. It will be interesting to see if all 80 want to contest elections. Athletics is one sport that has the maximum number of representations and their votes could be decisive.
The new entrants in the male category are Om Parkash, Moraad Ali Khan, Mansher Singh, and Gaurav Nandu Natekar. Archer Rahul Banerjee too is one of the new entrants, even though his name was not there in the initial list. Rajesh Pattu, an Arjuna Awardee and Asian Games medallist, was first on the list of reserves in men, and he was surprisingly not moved to the final list, while the other four — Om Parkash, Moraad, Mansher and Natekar all were included from the reserves. No wushu player in the reserve list made it to the final one. Pattu’s exclusion can come under scrutiny because there is another sport that is an associate member of the IOA.
Athletes like Joseph Abraham, Renjith Maheswary, and lifter Ravi Kumar, who had a tainted past, have been removed. Similarly, all wushu players — four in the women's section — have been removed. In the women's category, Dipa Karmakar and Kunjarani Devi, with doping past too, have been omitted from the list.
If there were one or two surprises in the men's section, the women's list too had a few. There were close to 10 names who were not there in the reserves, made to the list. Jwala Gutta and Trupti Murgunde were included later, but apparently within time. Some of the names in the women's category were not considered because apparently they did not meet the criteria. Bilagali Ramashetty Meenakshi (badminton), Kezia Vargheese (cycling), Ragina Kiro (kayaking), Mehjabeen Akhter (skiing), Beena S (kayaking) and Sarita Singh (volleyball) are from the reserves list. Rhoda Franklin (athletics) was not on the list of reserves. Vargheese is also on the Athletes Commission electoral roll but not contesting.
As per the recent Sportspersons of Outstanding Merit Rules, ratified in September this year, eligible candidates for the SOM rolls should be from Olympic sports. The rule clearly says: the athlete “have represented India in an Olympic Sport for which the concerned National Sports Federation/national sports body is a member of IOA.” That means sports like wushu and kabaddi, which are not Olympic sports, should not have been considered.