Sports Minister Rajyvardhan Singh Rathore livid with archery coach who tried to 'hug' Britain's Women's Archery team member

What’s the story?

Union Minister for Youth Activities and Sports Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore lashed out at Indian compound archery coach Sunil Kumar for alleged misconduct with an athlete from the British girls’ archery team.

Sunil Kumar, who was a part of the Indian contingent to the World Youth Archery Championship in Argentina, earlier this month, was immediately suspended from the tournament, and was also sent back to New Delhi soon enough. He was even barred from entering the team hotel, after the incident.

In case you didn’t know…

A number of reports emerged in the media after Sunil Kumar’s return from Argentina, suggesting that he was reported to the World Archery for allegedly trying to hug one of the members of the British archery team. The Archery Association of India has also set up an enquiry into the matter.

Heart of the matter

Rathore took to social media site Twitter to announce the steps that the Sports Ministry will be taking in the future, in order to prevent such incidents from happening.

In his tweet, Rathore said that the Sports Ministry will be looking into the past credentials of all the members of the sporting contingents that India sends out to international events in the future.

Unacceptable behaviour of the Archery coach; @IndiaSports will ask for credentials of all those accompanying teams; NSFs will be responsible

— Rajyavardhan Rathore (@Ra_THORe) October 20, 2017

He also mentioned that the NSFs, or the national sporting federations will be “responsible” for these things.

What’s next?

Although Sunil Kumar had reportedly sent an apology letter to the AAI, it is yet to be seen what actions are going to be taken against him. The AAI has launched its enquiry into the matter, and has received backing on their stance on this issue from World Archery. As of now, Sunil Kumar remains suspended.

Sportskeeda’s take:

Instances such as these take all the limelight away from the sport. These actions also tend to harm the morale of a team that is participating against the best athletes from around the world, in a land that is far, far away from home. To add to that, it is not just the athletes who represent the country. The coaches and the other back-room staff are also representatives of the country in international events such as these. Hence any sort of misbehavior reflects badly on the country, and should not be taken lightly.