NEW DELHI: The Federal Indian government has so far cleared 62 members of the Indian contingent to participate in the Commonwealth games, to be held at Auckland (New Zealand) from January 24 to February 3.
A decision regarding the seven member ‘bowling squad is expected late and if it also gets the nod, it will be the largest ever contingent from India for the Commonwealth games, according to Chef De Mission K.S. Bains,
The previous maximum was 61 for the 1982 Brisbane games. Nine member of the contingent left for Auckland on Jan 16th to participate in draws and competitions where necessary. Another batch of four left in the early hours Wednesday and the main contingent will leave Thursday via Bombay.
After the games, the contingent would leave Auckland on February five and reach here via Singapore on February seven he said,
As of now, India will participate in five disciplines -badminton, boxing, judo, shooting and weightlifting. If bowling is also cleared, the number will go up to six.
The discipline conspicuous missing from the list is athletics as the Amateur Athletics Federation of India which originally wanted to field a women’s team, pulled out after it became known that sprint queen P.T. Usha was not going.
Bowling (pending clearance);
1, Surya Kumar Sehgal
2, Basant Kumar Rampuria
3, V. Sreenivasa Pai
4, Pratap Singh Bengani
5, Gopi Ram Sharma
- Vipin Dhawan
- Rajender Singh Bengani
- SS. Oberoi (Manager cum coach).
Indian Olympic Association Officials:
- Mr. K.S, Bains — Chef De Mission
- Mr. LK. Daga — Secretary Cum Treasurer
- Dr. Manmohan Singh — Doctor
- Mr. Eshwar Reddy Masseur
The Indian Olympic Association (IOA)
delegation to attend the commonwealth ‘a games federation (CGF) meeting in Auckland was yet to be finalized, the IOA President, Mr. B. Sivanthi Adityan said,
Elections of various CGF office bearers are scheduled for the general assembly meeting to be held on January 23 with Mr. Ivor Dent of Canada and MR. O. De Sales of Hong Kong in the fray for the top post of the President.
The Auckland games will also be utilized by various countries to make their intended bids for the 1998 games known and start canvassing for them.
AA decision on the 1998 commonwealth games will however, be taken during the 1992 Olympic games in Barcelona. Victoria (Canada) won the bid for the 1994 games during the Seoul Olympics in 1988.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 26, 1990
