Shailaja lashes out at Sports Ministry, Gulati

Wed, Jul 16 07:47 PM

New Delhi, Jul 16 (PTI) Disgruntled weightlifter Shailaja Pujari today trained her guns at the Sports Ministry and national federation General Secretary B R Gulati, accusing them of "pressurising" the selection committee to select Monika Devi for the Beijing Olympics ahead of her. Shailaja, who was pipped by Monika Devi in the selection trials in Bangalore yesterday, claimed in a letter to PTI that Gulati had told her that Sports Ministry had "already selected Monika Devi irrespective of trial results".

"I was informed by the IWF General Secretary B R Gulati it is his prerogative to select anybody of his liking and he can ignore the selection committee and take his own decision. He also said the union sports ministry had already selected Monika irrespective of trial result," Shailaja said.

"The IWF General Secretary influenced the members of the selection committee and coerced them to select Monika Devi, who is very inferior to me, by stating Ministry had issued certain irrelevant criteria for selection. "The members of selection committee argued to select a better lifter but Gulati pressurised them to select Monika.

" The Andhra lifter said she faired better than Monika in the first trial in Pune on June 29 as well as in Bangalore yesterday but the IWF ignored her "better" scores. "Indian Weightlifting Federation conducted selection trials on June 29 at ASI, Pune to select the lifter for Beijing Olympics.

I stood first as per the Sinclair Formula and the world rankings. Monica was second.

"In the re-trials at Bangalore also I did very well and beat Monika Devi with a huge margin," she added. Shailaja claimed that one of the selection committee member had expressed displeasure at the selection procedure.

PTI.

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