Sardar Singh will be India’s flag-bearer in the Asian Games opening ceremony here on Friday but chef de mission Adille Sumariwalla revealed that he did not have many options while picking the national hockey team captain’s name.
“Actually about 90 per cent of the people we had been trying to ask, through coaches, said they did not want to send their athletes for the ceremony as they had events the next day or the day after,” said Sumariwalla. “They said they wanted to concentrate on their sport… Sardar Singh doesn’t have a match so he was happy to carry the flag.”
The opening ceremony could see the athletes being held up at the venue from 4 p.m. to close to midnight, said Sumariwala.
“There were many contenders, there were so many Olympic medallists. We had asked them. But the boxers are not here, the wrestlers are not here, shooters shoot the next day, badminton will be played the next morning but I don’t see why we are focusing so much on a flag-bearer,” said Sumariwalla. “I think we are here to win medals. Flag bearers are just a symbolic thing and I think the focus should be on medals. I think it can be a great boost to hockey and I hope they win the gold. I think they are playing well at the moment.”
The size of the contingent will be limited to 130 for the opening ceremony.
“It can be less but not more but I don’t even know whether we can fill 130 because a lot of people have events the next day. For example, Nikolai (Snesarev, coach of distance runners) said the athletes would not attend the opening ceremony. They have a training session that evening.” The Government has cleared more than 500 athletes for the Asiad.
Tri-colour goes up Meanwhile, the Indian tri-colour was hoisted at the Athletes Village in a lively ceremony, which included dancers on stilts, on Thursday.
About 50 Indian athletes attended the event though there were not many known faces in the side.
The flags of Palestine, Chinese Taipei, Uzbekistan, Myanmar and Tajikistan were also raised along with India.
