Adille Sumariwalla: No second chances, selection for CWG is final

Jeswin and Tejaswin had controversially been left out from the Commonwealth Games squad despite having met the qualification standard set by the Athletics Federation itself.

Sumariwala said that athletes who were not picked for the CWG would continue to be considered for future events.

Athletics Federation of India president Adille Sumariwalla on Friday ruled out the possibility of leaving the door open for the Commonwealth Games to high jump national record holder Tejaswin Shankar and long jumper Jeswin Aldrin, both of whom had controversially been left out of the team selected for the Birmingham Games.

"The decision made on team selection is final. We have sent the list of 37 players chosen by the selection committee to the IOA. We can remove names but we can't add to the list," Sumariwala said.

While reports suggested that an athlete had requested a trial be conducted in California, Sumariwalla said that the only 'trial' to be conducted was for a few players already named in the team.

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"We have included a few players (discus thrower Seema Punia and shot putter Tajinder Toor) subject to their performance at competitions in California and Kazakhstan. If they don't perform there they will not be picked. There's no other trial as such," Sumariwalla said.

Jeswin and Tejaswin had controversially been left out from the Commonwealth Games squad despite having met the qualification standard set by the Athletics Federation itself.

Jeswin - who has the best (albeit wind assisted) jump by an Indian this season was not picked because of a weak performance at the Inter State championship last week.

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Tejaswin the national record holder in the high jump was not picked since he competed at (and won) his final NCAA championships rather than travel to India for the Inter State which the AFI had announced would serve as a final selection trial for the CWG team.

However Sumariwala said that athletes who were not picked for the CWG would continue to be considered for future events. "Their not being picked for the CWG team has no bearing on whether they are selected for future tournaments like the Asian Games or Asian Championships. We will put up our selection criteria for those competitions and if an athletes meets it they will surely be considered for those competitions," Sumariwalla added.