In a big blow to India's high jumper Tejaswin Shankar's Commonwealth Games 2022 (CWG 2022) dreams, the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) has not accepted his name for the big-ticket event.
Tejaswin's joy at being included in the Indian contingent for CWG 2022 was shortlived. On Wednesday, he was included after the Delhi High Court intervened after the athlete took the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) to the courts over his selection to the Indian team. The AFI omitted him despite the high jumper clearing the cut-off mark set by the governing body.
However, the CGF working committee on Thursday did not accept the inclusion of his name as the deadline for the entries has passed. The deadline to send entries was June 29.
“We had sent Tejaswin Shankar’s name yesterday, but we received a response yesterday (Wednesday) night from the Commonwealth Games organisers that his name was not accepted," Indian Olympic Association's Secretary General Rajeev Mehta was quoted as saying by Sportstar.
It is also learnt that the CGF only approves like-for-like replacements. This means that for athletes who have been excluded from a particular event, the replacement athlete should be playing in the same event.
Tejaswin's name was included after the AFI decided to remove 400m runner Arokiya Rajiv from the Indian contingent due to poor fitness.
Also see: The list of all countries at the Commonwealth Games 2022.
Indian athletics team for CWG 2022
The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) has selected a 36-member Indian track and field squad for the Commonwealth Games.
Men
Avinash Sable (3000m steeplechase), Murali Sreeshankar, Muhammed Anees (long jump), Praveen Chitravel, Abdulla Aboobacker, Eldhose Paul (all triple jump), Neeraj Chopra, DP Manu, Rohit Yadav (all javelin), Sandeep Kumar, Amit Kharti (race walking), Amoj Jacob, Noah Nirmal Tom, Muhammed Ajmal, Naganathan Pandi and Rajesh Ramesh (4x400m relay).
Women
S Dhalalakshmi (100m and 4x100m relay), Jyothi Yarraji (100m hurdles), Aishwarya B (long jump and triple jump), Ancy Sojan (long jump), Manpreet Kaur (shotput), Navjeet Kaur Dhillon (discus), Annu Rani, Shilpa Rani (javelin), Manju Bala and Sarita Singh (hammer throw), Bhawana Jat, Priyanka Goswami (race walking), Hima Das, Dutee Chand, Srabani Nanda, MV Jilna and NS Simi (4x100m relay).