The Hindu : Sport : Olympic Torch relay leaves many disappointed

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 10, 2004

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Sport - Sports : General

Olympic Torch relay leaves many disappointed

By Our Sports Reporter

NEW DELHI, JUNE 9. Legendary quarter-miler Milkha Singh is disappointed that prominent sportspersons have been ignored to involve film personalities in the Olympic Torch relay that will be run in the capital on Thursday.

"Frankly, an Olympic Torch should be carried by sportspersons only. Film stars or politicians may run the relay alongside the torch-bearers,'' Milkha Singh said here after attending the briefing conducted by the Torch Relay team of the Athens Olympic Games Organising Committee (ATHOC) for the torch-bearers.

"I am very upset that many prominent sportspersons like P.T. Usha and Prakash Padukone have been neglected. This is a very wrong trend for which the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) is entirely at fault,'' Milkha Singh said.

Olympian Ashok Kumar said he felt dishonoured after going through the list of 100-odd runners.

The Olympic flame, which arrives in Delhi from Beijing on a special Boeing named Hera, will light the first of the 105 torches that will be carried around a 33km route in the city. The Delhi Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, will hand over the first torch to the IOA President Suresh Kalmadi, while the next runner is the captain of India's World Cup-winning hockey squad of 1975, Ajitpal Singh.

But then on, the sponsors, Coca Cola and Samsung, take over. From Aurobindo Marg to August Kranti Marg, there will be 16 torchbearers with no sports achievements. Tennis ace Mahesh Bhupathi is set to run the stretch from Siri Fort Road to Niti Bagh, but whether he would be able to make it by Thursday was a matter of suspense.

On the home stretch, pistol shooter Jaspal Rana starts from Vijay Chowk down the Rajpath and passes the flame to triple centurion Virender Sehwag. The most important leg, the run on the Rajpath will see Aslam Sher Khan, Rahul Dravid, Aamir Khan, Baichung Bhutia, M.P. Ganesh, Satpal, and inexplicably Kim Kwangsoo of Samsung and actress Rani Mukherjee, the Coca Cola nominee.

Rani Mukherjee will hand over the flame to Milkha Singh, the penultimate runner of the Olympic Torch relay before rifle shooter Anjali Bhagwat carries it into the National Stadium to light the flame. In all likelihood, Bhutia may also miss the run as he was in Japan on Wednesday with the Indian team that played the Asian Zone Group 3 World Cup qualifier football match.

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