Several badminton players to miss Khelo India Youth Games at Panchkula

The fourth edition of the Khelo India Youth Games, which were supposed to be held in 2019 but were postponed twice due to the pandemic, will be held in Panchkula, Punjab, from June 4 to 13. The badminton event will get underway at the Tau Devi Lal Sports Complex on Saturday and will end on June 7.

The BAI recently released a list of eligible badminton players, consisting of 27 boys and an equal number of girls.

Players born on or after January 1, 2003 and those who were eligible as per the Badminton Association of India (BAI) rankings in 2019, will be allowed to participate in this Khelo India edition. The governing body of sports in India made this decision, taking into consideration that the tournament could not be held due COVID-19.

However, several of the listed players will apparently miss the Khelo India Youth Games. The event, which was postponed twice, was slotted in early June on very short notice. Thus, most of the eligible shuttlers will miss out due to prior commitments.

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At least half a dozen players competing at the Italian International Challenge

The Italian International Challenge badminton tournament began in Milan on Thursday. Several Indians are playing in the four-day meet, which is clashing with the Khelo India Youth Games.

Since most of the Indian players had sent in their entries at least a couple of months ago, they went ahead with their plans of playing at the Italian International.

One of the parents of the players said they preferred traveling to Italy as they were committed to doing so:

“I have already sent an email to both the state association and BAI stating our non-availability. We wanted to play this year’s Khelo India Youth Games but it clashed with the Italian International Challenge. We already made our travel plans before the announcement of dates of the Khelo India Games.”

Pranav Rao Gandham of Telangana will be playing the qualifying rounds in Milan on Thursday. Tamil Nadu southpaw S Shanker Muthusamy, Varun Kapur of Maharashtra and Siddhant Gupta are also involved in the qualifiers.

Fast-rising Indian shuttlers Tanya Hemanth and Samiya Imad Farooqui are in the main draw in Italy. It has been learned that several other players on the list will also skip KIYG due to various other reasons.

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List of boys for Khelo India Badminton

Pranav Rao Gandham (Telangana)

Siddhant Gupta (Tamil Nadu)

S Rithvik Sanjeevi (Tamil Nadu)

S Shanker Muthusamy (Tamil Nadu)

Pranay Katta (Rajasthan)

Bharat Raghav (Haryana)

Jayant Rana (Haryana)

Monmay Bikash Baruah (Assam)

Ayush Raj Gupta (Uttar Pradesh)

Saneeth Dayanand (Karnataka)

Vikash Yadav (Delhi)

Shubham Patel (Rajasthan)

Kavin Thangam (Tamil Nadu)

Chayanit Joshi (Uttarakhand)

Varun Kapur (Maharashtra)

Raman Kumar (Haryana)

BV Uneeth Krishna (Telangana)

Darshan Pujari (Maharashtra)

Ansh Vishal Gupta (Uttar Pradesh)

Naren Iyer (Karnataka)

Dhruv Bansal (Chhattisgarh)

Mayank Choudhary (Delhi)

Manav Choudhary (Haryana)

Sankar Saraswat (Rajasthan)

Ayan Rashid (Assam)

Setu Tushar Kumar (Bihar)

V. Joseph (Mizoram)

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List of girls for Khelo India Badminton

Tasnim Mir (Gujarat)

Mansi Singh (Uttar Pradesh)

Aditi Bhatt (Uttarakhand)

Aashi Rawat (Delhi)

Tanya Hemanth (Karnataka)

Vijetha Harish (Karnataka)

Treesa Jolly (Air India)

Anupama Upadhyaya (Haryana)

S Kavipriya (Puducherry)

N Pranavi (Tamil Nadu)

Kriti Bharadwaj (Karnataka)

Sakshi Phogat (Rajasthan)

Janani Anant Kumar (Karnataka)

M. Meghana Reddy (Telangana)

K. Maheshwari Devi (Manipur)

Samiya Imad Farooqui (Telangana)

K. Bhargavi (Telangana)

Riya Habbu (Maharashtra)

Akansha Matte (Andhra Pradesh)

Sneha Rajwar (Uttarakhand)

A. Abhilasha (Telangana)

Durva Gupta (Delhi)

Radhika Sharma (Punjab)

Khushi Thakker (Delhi)

Shreya Lele (Gujarat)

Janhavi Kanitkar (Maharashtra)

Gayatri Gopichand Pullela (Telangana).