New Delhi: Just days before the start of the Paris Olympics, the Indian Olympic Association is facing the heat over administrative issues involving coaches and support staff for the Paris Olympics despite clearing a jumbo 256-member contingent. India’s South Korean coach in archery, Baek Woong Ki, has not been accomodated in the contingent. Besides, wrestler Antim Panghal said her coach and physio are yet to get a visa because of delay by IOA officials.

IOA president PT Usha has come out in defence, saying IOA has been “proactive” in getting accreditations and visas for coaches and support staff members. For wrestling, Usha blamed its own ad-hoc committee, which was governing the sport until March 18, for not recommending Antim’s support personnel in the long list.

IOA has cleared 68 coaches and 50 support staff for 117 athletes. “Athletes are at the centre of our planning. Instead of the usual 3:1 ratio between athletes and support staff, we have worked hard to change it to a slightly better than 1:1 ratio,” said Usha in a statement.

There’s also a 13-member IOA Medical Team that will help athletes in Games Village, besides IOA and SAI officials. Personal coaches, trainers and physios of several top athletes have been accommodated. Some of the disciplines like wrestling, table tennis, and weightlifting have more support staff members than athletes and not all of them can be accommodated in the Games Village.

Surprisingly, archery head coach Baek Woong Ki, under whom Indian teams have recorded impressive results and qualified for Paris Olympics, has been left out. An Archery Association of India official said they had sent names of six support staff members, out of which four have been taken.

“Such last-minute changes would impact the performance of the team. When you have so many personal coaches being allowed in other disciplines, why are you leaving out the head coach of the team under whom Indian teams have given good results in the last two years. ,” the official said.

Bajwa couters Usha’s charge

A large number of support staff will stay outside the Games Village but will get to access competition venues. Seven personal support staff members in wrestling, whose names were not included in the long list, are being given ‘non accredited’ cards and will have ‘limited access’ to venues. As reported earlier in HT, the six-member wrestling team will have three national coaches, besides the personal coach (Woller Akos) and physio (Ashwini Jeevan Patil) of Vinesh Phogat.

With other wrestlers also asking for inclusion of their support personnel, IOA has included seven of them in the ‘non-accredited’ category. It includes three members of Antim’s team -- coach Bhagat Singh, sparring partner Vikas and physio Heera. Anshu Malik’s father-cum-coach Dharamveer Singh is also part of the list.

IOA president Usha said Antim won a quota as early as September at the World Wrestling Championships but called it ‘strange’ that names of her support staff members were not ‘recommended’ in the long list.

“In its wisdom, the Ad Hoc Committee administering wrestling chose not to include the name of Antim’s coach or physio in the long list of names sent to the Olympic Games Organising Committee,” Usha said.

IOA executive council member Bhupinder Bajwa was presiding over the ad-hoc committee for wrestling. When contacted, Bajwa expressed surprise that the ad-hoc committee was being “blamed” for the miss.

“We left in March and after that WFI was in charge. Five wrestlers qualified in April and May. How do the names of Vinesh Phogat’s coach and support staff appear in the long list when she qualified only in April?,” asked Bajwa.

Meanwhile, Antim said IOA staff “delayed the process” of sending a letter to the French Embassy for issuing visas to her support staff members.

Usha said IOA has been “proactive” in getting accreditations and visas for coaches and support personnel of athletes and exuded confidence that visa requests will be processed speedily.

A federation official wondered why every request of personal support staff was being cleared by the IOA.

“There is only a limited number of support staff you can have in a contingent. Non-accredited card holders anyways will not be able to access FOP and movement will be severely restricted. You have to provide them daily passes or tickets. Then, why clear so many personal coaches, physios etc. It will add to the headache and lead to more problems, like it did in Asian Games,” the official said.

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