Boxer Vijender sees lighter side to dope controversy

At least one soul can see humour in India's great dope trick -- Boxer Vijender Singh, who recalls how Indian media preferred to cover the now-tainted 4x400m relay team's 2010 Asian Games final

Boxer Vijender sees lighter side to dope controversy

At least one soul can see humour in India's great dope tricku00a0-- Boxer Vijender Singh, who recalls how Indian media preferred to cover the now-tainted 4x400m relay team's 2010 Asian Games final

India's star boxer Vijender Singh had a hearty laugh back in his room at the National Institute of Sport in Patiala
yesterday, when MiD DAY reminded him of how most of the traveling Indian media (this correspondent included) at the Guangzhou Asian Games in China last year had given his gold medal match the miss, opting to cover the women's 4X400m women's relay final instead. It's a move they may regret today, given three out of those four gold medal-winning Indian athletes ufffd Sini Jose, Ashwini Akkunji and Mandeep Kaur ufffd tested positive for banned anabolic steroids.

Vijender Singh of India celebrates after beating Abbos Attoev of
Uzbekistan in the men's 75kg boxing final at the 16th Asian Games in
Guangzhou, China.

"Ya, I remember that. You guys would have thought that I'm fighting a World Champion (Abbos Attoev), so obviously I would lose and get a silver, so there's no point wasting time here, and so you stayed away," he told MiD DAY yesterday.

The story though was not as simple as Vijender put it.

On November 26 last year the touring Indian sports media at the Asiad were forced to choose between attending India's 4X400m women's relay final scheduled for 7:20pm at the Aoti Sports Complex and Vijender's 8:15pm 75Kg final bout against World Champion Attoev of Ukbekistan at the Foshan Lingnan Mingzhou Gymnasium. Now, the Foshan Gym is a good two hours away from the Main Press Centre (MPC) from where the Asian Games organisers provide transport to mediapersons. However, the transport provided is not from venue to venue but from the MPC to a specific venue and back. So, it would have been practically impossible to make it to Vijender's bout on time from the Aoti Complex, as one had to first return to the MPC and then board the bus to Foshan. So, given the time constraints and of course the undisputable reputation of the 4X400m women's relay team ufffd they had won gold in the 2006 Doha Asiad as well as the New Delhi Commonwealth Commonwealth Games a month back ufffd the 'chalo Aoti' move was unanimous.

As things turned out, it was quite an eventful day at Aoti too. Preeja Sreedharan and Kavita Raut set the ball rolling by clocking their personal best to win the silver and bronze respectively in the women's 5000m race. And this was followed by an expected gold from the 4X400m women's relay team.

Miles away meanwhile, Beijing Olympic bronze medal-winner Vijender too clinched gold beating Attoev despite breaking a finger early in the bout.

Vijender admitted there were more reporters for his semi-final fight than the final. "Two days earlier, everyone was excited after I won the semi-final (against Iran's Mohammad Sattarpour) and I spoke to a huge section of the Indian media. But after the final though I walked off in a hurry to tend to my broken finger, I don't remember too many India journalists approaching me. It didn't bother me of course," he added.

It will definitely be bothering that section of India's sports journos today though!