Queen’s Baton reaches city

The “Flying Sikh” Milkha Singh,even at the age of 74,covered the maximum distance by any sportsperson taking part in the relay. From the moment he took the baton from Finance Secretary Sanjay Kumar at Matka Chowk,the veteran athlete led others on his way to the stadium. Singh,who had participated in the ’82 Asian Games baton relay in New Delhi,hoped that the players will come up with match-winning performances and match his feat at Cardiff Commonwealth Games in 1958 where he had won a gold medal. “I hope the Indian players will come up with good performances and win lots of medals for the country,” said Singh. He further said that Indians can win gold in shooting,boxing,wrestling and even weightlifting but he cannot say the same about athletics. “Athletics is considered the main game in big events like Olympics and Commonwealth Games but our standard is not good there. If the concerned authorities had accepted my request to give the training part to the army,the situation would have been different,” he added.

When Abhinav Bindra took over the baton,the crowd cheered and wished for another good performance from the ace shooter. “It has been a while since we have seen him in action. It was a dream-come-true experience to see him run in the relay today. We hope he will make the Commonwealth Games memorable by winning gold for India,” said Shilpa Sood,a sports enthusiast.

However,the event was marred by the mismanagement of the UT Administration. For better part of the function inside the stadium,mediapersons and security personnel jostled for space. Empty stands and chairs depicted the story contrary to the claims of the Finance Secretary who said he was expecting a large number of people to actively take part in the event. “From Thursday,we had been eagerly waiting to have a look at the baton. But we were shooed away by the police,” said Anil Kumar,who had come all the way from Mohali to watch the function.

Meanwhile,several players from the city of national and international repute were conspicuous by their absence: apparently,they were not invited to the event by the UT Administration. Sukhbir Singh Gill,Inderjit Chadha,Dr N S Sodhi,Deepak Thakur and Baljit Singh Dadhwal — all hockey starts from Chandigarh — called the administration’s attitude “callous”. It may be mentioned that Newsline had reported this issue on Thursday.