Sports Ministry spends 4.63 cr for badminton Oly preparation

New Delhi: The Sports Ministry today said it has so far spent an amount of Rs 4.63 crore on the training and foreign exposure on badminton meant for the medal prospects for this year’s London Olympics. The amount has been issued under ‘Operation Excellence for London Olympics 2012’ (OPEX 2012) scheme. Out of Rs 4.63 crore, a sum of Rs 2.58 crore was spent on national coaching camps, organised for the training of 38 players (24 men and 14 women), who were guided by 10 coaches and five supporting staff. [caption id=“attachment_199025” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“The Sports Ministry today said it has so far spent an amount of Rs 4.63 crore on the training and foreign exposure on badminton meant for the medal prospects for this year’s London Olympics. Adek Berry/AFP”]  [/caption] The remaining amount of Rs 2.05 crore was utilised for foreign exposure of players. The total duration of camps has been 276 days till now. The training began in April last year, well before the London Olympics in order to maximise India’s chances to win medals in the games. This was stated by TPS Puri, Vice-President (Administration), Badminton Federation of India (BFI), in review meeting of the preparation for Olympics, 2012, called by Sports Minister Ajay Maken. Maken also asked Federation’s vice president to submit all the requests for gadgets and equipments as well as for foreign training of players, if any, within 2-3 days so that the necessary clearances for the same can be given at the earliest. In the meeting, the BFI vice president also apprised the sports minister regarding the qualifying criteria for the London Olympics. A player or a team, in order to qualify, will have to attain the requisite Badminton World Federation (BWF) ranking on 3 May 2012 based on results achieved during the period 2 May 2011 to 29 April 2012 in the ranking tournaments. For singles events, a player needs to be in top 32 of BWF rankings and for doubles, a team needs to be in top 16. PTI