On Sunday, The women’s gymnastics trio of Aruna Budda Reddy, Praniti Nayak and Praniti Das were docked points at the 2018 Commonwealth Games after it was found that the ‘national emblem’ was missing from their attire. The three also received penalty points as they were not wearing identical leotards during the women’s team final.
The gymnastics fraternity is shocked how the coaching staff and the Indian Olympic Association officials missed the specifications. “It’s quite surprising how such a big error has happened in an international event,” said Bisweshwar Nandi, the coach of Dipa Karmakar, who is not competing at the Games due to injury. Gymnastics had been in the midst of a selection controversy even before the team boarded the flight to Gold Coast because of the long-standing feud between two factions in the federation, none of which is recognised by the sports ministry.
In fact, the international federation had to step in so that a team could be sent to the Games. While the women’s team has been docked a point, Aruna Budda Reddy, Pranati Das and Pranati Nayak have been penalised 0.3 points each for not complying with the dress code. “India has received a penalty of 1.0 point in the team final due to not identical leotards. Aruna Reddy, Pranati Das and Pranati Nayak have been penalised 0.3 points each in the balance beam due to the missing national emblem,”. According to the artistic gymnastics rule-book, “They (gymnasts) must wear a national identification or emblem on the leotard/unitard in accordance with the most recent FIG (international gymnastics federation) publicity rules.