Indian doubles badminton star Ashwini Ponnappa revealed that she didn’t receive any individual financial assistance from the sports ministry in the build-up to the Paris Olympics. Ponnapa also shared that her request for a coach was turned down ahead of the just-concluded Summer Games.
The Sports Authority of India (SAI) shared a document about the financial support provided to the Indian athletes who qualified for the Paris Olympics. The document shared revealed that Ashwini was provided ₹4,50,000 under TOPS and ₹1,48,04,080 under the Annual Calendar for Training and Competition (ACTC).
Ashwini Ponnappa slams SAI report about Olympic funding
Sharing on X (formerly Twitter), Ashwini Ponnappa wrote, “How can an article be written without getting facts right? How can this lie be written? Received 1.5 CR each? From whom? For what? I haven’t received this money. I was not even part of any organisation or TOPS for funding.”
“The fact is, as far as support goes, we wanted our doubles coach, who is such an integral part of our doubles team, to travel with us, and we were denied this. Do get your facts checked before publishing anything about us and the financials that we put in to get ourselves ready for the Olympics,” she continued.