Frustrating to see Rio pullouts, says Ghosal

Squash players Saurav Ghosal (from left), Dipika Pallikal and Joshna Chinnapa in Mumbai on Thursday. (Photo: PTI )

With a number of golfers pulling out of the Summer Games in Rio, top Indian squash players have said the International Olympic Committee should reconsider their policy and include more deserving games in the quadrennial event.

The highest ranked Indians in the men’s and women’s section, Saurav Ghosal and Joshna Chinappa, feel squash players would have participated come what way and say it is frustrating to see pull-outs when they wanted to be there at any cost.

World number one golfer Jason Day, no 3 Dustin Johnson and fourth-ranked Rory McIlroy have already pulled out from the Games citing fear of the Zika virus, political unrest in Brazil and security concerns in Rio.

“I think, every squash player in the world have made it clear that being a part of the Olympics is a massive achievement for them, let alone winning a medal and everyone holds true to that word. It is definitely very frustrating to see, or read articles every other day or every other week of, the world number 1, 2 of the golf pulling out (of the Olympics), and then you have Mcllroy coming out day before yesterday and saying that it doesn’t really matter,” world no. 17 Ghosal said.

“I mean it’s frustrating for us at a personal level, it’s frustrating for the sport at a broader level, but at the end of the day it’s the IOC which has to look at it and see what exactly it wants. For squash it is the biggest thing ever when you have someone like Nicole David, who has won seven or eight World Opens and saying she is going to give up every one of them for one Olympic medal, that kind of shows you how much that Olympic medal means to us squash players.

“We certainly hope that the IOC maybe looks at restructuring their decision making process to include sports which truly want to be there,” he added.

As Olympic fever rises, Ghosal and Chinappa along with Dipika Pallikal and Mahesh Mangaonkar will slug it out in the Otters Club 73rd Senior National Squash Championship here, of which the main rounds began on the day. Joshna who made into the world top ten for the first time, admitted the Olympic dream for her is as good as over. “Hopefully the IOC can see in time that squash deserves to be in the Olympics. In the meantime we are not sweating about it,” she added.