Organising Committee still confused about who should give away medals to winning athletes

Who will do the honours?

Organising Committee still confused about who should give away medals to winning athletes

Even as Indian athletes continue to win hearts and medals at the Commonwealth Games, the goof ups on part of the Organising Committee (OC) ensured that even the medal presentation ceremony did not end without controversy.

Games glory: Suresh Kalmadi presents the gold medal to India's
Krishna Poonia for winning the women's discus throw event. Pic/Mid Day

Highly-placed sources in the OC told MiD DAY that each day confusion reigns supreme at Games venues whenever winning athletes are to be presented with their medals, as till now there is no official list of dignitaries to honour the podium finishers.

There are reports that after a couple of events the awardees had to wait for hours so that a guest could be managed to award the medal recipients.

Interestingly, there used to be a last minute effort to arrange the coat and tie for the guest if he is not wearing formals during the ceremony. It would be pertinent to note here that according to the CWG rules, the guest for award ceremony has to wear a suit only exception being political leaders. "In the absence of a pre-decided guest list, as a last minute change, the officials decide to ask any senior official present at that time at the venue to give away the medals. But the official was not wearing a suit. The organisers then managed a coat and a tie and made him wear it," sources said.

The medal ceremony is also facing a serious lack of coordination on part of the officials. "It was an undeclared norm that ideally and preferably an Indian leader or dignitary should award the players, if one of the winners is an Indian. But, many times the last minute change isn't communicated to the announcer. So, while he keeps announcing the name of the original guest, somebody else does the honours on the ground," said a highly-placed source.

A case in point is the medal ceremony of the Men's 100 meters final. While the venue announcer kept shouting that Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda would give away the medals while on the ground his son Deepinder Hooda, MP, did the honours.

According to sources, the sports presentation department which was set up for streamlining the list of dignitaries has failed in a big way. "Several times the presentation ceremony was delayed as either the pre-decided guest was absent, or organisers decided to change the list in last minute," said a source in the OC.

"Suresh Kalmadi and Lalit Bhanot were asked to give away the medals to winners of the 4x400 m women's relay on Tuesday evening. As nobody expected India to win a medal in a track and field event, the list of dignitaries to present the award had no big names from among Indian VIPs. Kalmadi and Bhanot had to step in at the last moment," said a senior official.