Commonwealth Games 2018: Delay in sending entries causes Sreeshankar to miss out on berth

A little bit of callousness may have seriously hampered India's chances at the Gold Coast Games as reports now emerge that two of India's top athletes will miss out on a Commonwealth berth due to a delay in sending their entries. Current top-ranked Junior M Sreeshankar who bedazzled with his performance at the Athletics Federation Cup and high jumper Siddharth Yadav, who has the fifth best jump outdoors in the world this year, will sadly miss out on a berth. This came even as the Athletics Federation of India were seen frantically trying to sort out the mess with Commonwealth Games officials to accommodate the two athletes for Australia but, eventually, they were left behind. 'Both Sreeshankar and Siddharth's entries have been rejected, they said they were received late,' Bedros Bedrosian, the National coach for long and triple jumps, was quoted as saying by

The Hindu. Basically, even people and observers from the Athletics Federation of India had never believed that these two athletes were capable of the feats that they displayed at the Fed Cup, let alone be seriously considered as medal prospects for Australia. 'After the Indoor Asians (in Teheran, in February), I had told everybody that Sreeshankar is capable of jumping 8m and qualifying for the Games but nobody believed me,' Bedros continued. Also read: Pullouts from Athletics Federation Cup put a dent in India's CWG chances At this point, it is worth looking at the Fed Cup performances of the two athletes. Sreeshankar leapt to 7.99m which saw him IAAF's under-20 list and reach No. 8 in the outdoor men's chart. Siddharth's 2.25m also saw him do an impressive climb in the World Rankings. Did poor planning by the Athletics Federation of India seriously hamper the country's chances? It appears that while the last date for sending official entries to the Commonwealth Games was March 7, the AFI was conducting the qualifiers in the form of the Fed Cup from March 5 to March 8. In contrast, England announced its team in October and Australia published its list on March 1.