We had sent entries of shuttlers for Youth Asian Games in May: BAI

New Delhi: The Badminton Association of India (BAI) on Saturday claimed that they had sent entries of four Indian shuttlers for the ongoing Youth Asian Games in May and was under the impression that Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) would ensure the players participation by sorting out the issue that aroused because of the suspension of IOA by IOC.

"Badminton Association of India had forwarded the entry by Number Form along with Name of the Players letter to the Office of Prof. Vijay Kumar Malhotra, acting president (IOC Recognised) on 31 May 2013," BAI vice-president (admin.) TPS Puri said in a detailed statement.

"Subsequently, BAI also forwarded the scanned copies of passports along with photographs of players to Mr. Vinod Kumar Tiwari, director, International and NOC relation for other formalities on 19 June 2013, as desired.

"We received an e-mail on 13 August 2013 for urgently nominating specific entry, event-wise. Accordingly, on the same day the information was sent to Mr. Wang Kun, Sports Entries Office.

"Confirmation was received on specific game-wise entries by the Office of Prof. Vijay Kumar Malhotra on 15 August 2013 from Wang Kun, and to us on 16 August 2013," he said.

Puri said BAI was under the impression that the OCA would ensure participation of the shuttlers by sorting out the issue.

"Mr. Haider A Farman, Olympic Council of Asia and director of Asian Games Department wrote to Mr. Surasak, on 14 August 2013 claiming that as the NOC of India is suspended, there were problems in sending the entries earlier and asked for conducting a re-draw," he said in the statement.

"Since OCA strongly recommended with instructions for accepting of entries and also for re-draw, the badminton team was sent to Nanjing on 15 August 2013, hence we were sure that OCA would get the matter sorted out, so that our players could participate.

"Also Mr. Vinod Kumar Tiwari had confirmed that they had sent instructions from OCA that the Badminton Association of India entries were to be included and a fresh draw was to be made."

Four shuttlers - Harsheel Dani, Aditya Joshi, Rituparna Da and Reshma Karthik - are in Nanjing, China to take part in the ongoing Youth Asian Games but since their names have not been included in the badminton draw, they could not participate in the event.