The Equestrian Federation of India has blatantly violated its own Selection Criteria by nominating a number of rider-horse combinations that have not secured even one Minimum Eligibility Requirement (MER), let alone three as laid down, for the Asian Games to be held in Hangzhou, China, later this year.
As per the nomination lists posted on the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) website, none of the 12 Dressage combinations, featuring four riders, just two the 11 Eventing combinations, involving six riders, and five of the eight Jumping combinations, featuring five riders, have secured even one MER (seen in the table below).
Ministry, IOA drag feet on overseeing selection matters
Sadly, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and the Indian Olympic Association have both ignored well-meaning suggestions that they at least oversee, if not take over, the selection process from here on. For some strange reason, only the EFI seems to have gotten away with an administrative logjam caused by having just three members left in its Executive Committee.
It is evident that EFI has employed double standards and made the most of the limited understanding of the sport and its technicalities among the legal fraternity. When it suited EFI, it said athletes and horses had to get MERs as required by the Selection Criteria Version 5. At other times, it has used the ‘suggestion’ of the Committee of Experts to lower the standards.
When it came to Shashank Singh Kataria, it insisted that he had failed to get the required MERs as laid down in Selection Criteria Version 5 and could not be included in the list of probables. It is fact that besides the two combination featuring Ashish Limaye and his mounts, the only Indian Eventing rider with a FEI-valid MER is Shashank Singh Kataria (on Icaro LB).
However, EFI hid behind the February 20 ‘suggestion’ of the smokescreen Committee of Experts that it had formed without any basis in its own constitution or the National Sports Development Code of India, 2011, and argued that the riders needed to get at least 1 MER to be included among the Order of Merit and therefore among the probables.
It is glaringly obvious that the Federation did not find ways to persuade Olympian Fouaad Mirza (on Seigneur Medicott) to be a part of the Eventing squad. It would appear its limited goal was to find a way to send Rakesh Kumar and Ashish Malik to Europe as probables. And one way of doing that was to eliminate some competition – Chirag Khandal and Shashank Singh Kataria.
EFI misrepresents facts in Court
Worse, EFI has misrepresented facts before the Delhi High Court bench comprising Justice Amit Mahajan and Justice Manoj Jain and perhaps to the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports as well as the Indian Olympic Association that only those on the Order of Merit have been entered for the Asian Games.
On May 20, EFI counsel Kirtiman Singh submitted to the Delhi High Court that the Federation had already finalised 12 combinations on the basis of the qualifying criteria. It told the Court that it could not include the Shashank Singh Kataria and Icaro LB combination in the long list since it had already sent the names of 12 rider-horse combinations to FEI.
First and foremost, Chirag Khandal (photo above, courtesy his Twitter handle) had not yet given the Federation the name of his horse. Though he was aware that the Supreme Court had directed the inclusion of Chirag Khandal in the long list only day before, the EFI counsel said EFI had already finalised a list of 12 combinations of six athletes with two horses each.
EFI cocks a snook at concept of rider-horse as a team
Secondly, the qualifying criteria were set for rider-horse combinations and not for individual athletes. So how could EFI nominate 24 combinations – 12 in Dressage, nine in Eventing and three in Jumping – in the long list without them having achieved any MER. Who decided to cock a snook at the very essence of Equestrian sport where the rider and horse are a team?
In a recent interview with an agency, EFI Secretary-General Col. Jaiveer Singh trashed concerns that the EFI did not have a selection committee.
“People are talking about the absence of a selection committee, but actually, the selections are based on riders’ performances at the FEI events, which are judged by reputed international officials. The riders are selected purely on the basis of their performance. The role of selection committee is actually to finalise criteria for selection,” he was quoted as saying.
Even if for a moment we accept what he said is gospel, he can have no explanation for a fundamental question: if the selection criteria stipulates that only the horse-rider combinations that have achieved the laid down MER as per Selection Criteria for the Asian Games trials will be considered for selection, why was it altered it to take only riders and not the combinations?
