Former national champion PT Usha says she has been going through "unbearable harassment" over controversy surrounding 1,500m specialist PU Chitra's exclusion from India's IAAF World Championships 2017 team.
National coach Usha has been accused of blowing away Chitra's chances of taking part at the world meet, starting August 4 in London.
Chitra's name along with men and women's 3000m steeplechase Asian Athletics champions Ajay Kumar Saroj and Sudha Singh were excluded from the list of 24 athletes, who will be travelling to London next month.
Chitra did not meet qualification mark
The 22-year-old won a gold medal at the Bhubaneshwar meet earlier this month, but her timing of 4:17.92s was well below the qualification mark of 4:07.50s. [An athlete can qualify for the biennial world meet by making the qualification mark set by IAAF or by winning a Gold at continental meets.]
Notably, the 22-year-old Kerala athlete failed to come up with a better performance and even slipped to second spot with a timing of 4:28.27s at Guntur's National inter-state meet, which was held a week after the Asian Championships.
Usha targetted
Even as Chitra approached the court and found Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's backing, media reports went on to claim Usha's role in Chitra's snub as the latter is not part of the former's Usha School of Athletics, where top athletes from the state, including Tintu Luka, are undergoing training.
Usha was targeted for not standing up for Chitra after it came to light that the former was part of selection panel that met on July 20. Feeling gutted over media reactions, the "Sprint Queen" says she will not cooperate with media henceforth.
"I want to lead a peaceful life with my family. Hence I won't cooperate with the visual media from today onwards protesting against the unbearable harassment. I am helpless on the issue. Please pardon me," Usha, who will travel with the team to London, said, as quoted by The News Minute.
She added "The unbearable harassment by the visual media is beyond the capacity to bear for the woman in me, who becomes happy or sad easily over small things."
AFI had clarified its stand
The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) chairman of selectors GS Radhwan said it was governing body's decision to select "only those athletes who had achieved performances close to IAAF's qualifying marks and not everyone who had won gold at Asian Championships".
The AFI, to assert its stand, even quoted Govindan Lakshmanan's example as well. The distance runner had won 5000m, 10,000m Golds at the Asian Championships.
However, the Tamil Nadu athlete, according to the governing body, was given the nod only in 5,000m and that too after he improved his timing at the inter-state meet in Guntur.
