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Boycotts don't win you influence: Olympic champion Abhinav Bindra on 2022 CWG boycott
India's only individual gold medallist, Abhinav Bindra suggested his opinion regarding the calls of boycott of 2022 Commonwealth Games in England as a protest against the exclusion of shooting from the Games. In an unprecedented move, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) President Narinder Batra wrote to Union Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Kiren Rijiju, urging India to boycott the 2022 CWG and asked for a meeting to discuss the matter. However, former world champion Bindra, who also claimed a historic gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, is against the calls of boycott, suggesting that the IOA should work closely with the CWG committee to get shooting in the core list of sports in the future. "Boycotts don't win you influence. They just make you irrelevant and punish other athletes. Would be far better if IOA did a campaign to load the CWG committees with their people and allies and push for the inclusion of shooting onto the core list of sports for the future," Bindra said in a tweet. https://twitter.com/Abhinav_Bindra/status/1155475493426098176 https://twitter.com/Abhinav_Bindra/status/1155475674825519106
In a letter to Rijiju, the IOA president Narinder Batra requested him for an early meeting to deliberate on the proposal. "We have been noticing over a period of time that wherever India seems to be getting grip of the game and performing well, then somehow we find that either the goal posts are shifted or rules are changed. We feel it is time for us in IOA/India to start asking tough questions and start taking tough positions," Batra wrote in his letter.
The development came only a day after the IOA pulled out of the Commonwealth Games Federation's (CGF) General Assembly, to be held in Rwanda in September, protesting the dropping of shooting from the 2022 CWG roster.
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