Corruption Sting Follows Indian Athletes to SochiNEW DELHI — The taint of corruption followed India's Olympic athletes everywhere in Sochi. They were not allowed to enter the Olympic stadium marching under the Indian flag. They were warned the national anthem would not play if they won any medals.
But the athletes had done nothing wrong. Their administrative exile was the result of ethics violations by the Indian Olympic Association, which had elected two corruption tainted officials as its leaders. Although the IOC executive board reinstated the Indian Olympic body Tuesday, five days after the games began the episode laid bare India's intractable problems with corruption on an international stage.
"The whole world is watching and when the Indian flag doesn't fly, people know that it's because of corruption and it's not a nice image for the country," said luger Shiva Keshavan, India's top winter sports athlete. "Symbolism is really important at the Olympic Games," he told The Associated Press in Sochi.
The bureaucratic bumbling had all the makings of a national scandal, touching on resonant issues of national pride and prestige. But despite the sting of embarrassment for the athletic community, the episode has failed to stir up much outrage among ordinary Indians.
The muted response stems, in part, from India's virtually non-existent presence at the Winter Olympics. It is likely the public sense of embarrassment would have been greater had the controversy broken out before a summer Olympics.
India has never won a medal at the Winter Olympics, and the three Indians competing this year at Sochi — a luger and two skiers — are not household names. Keshavan finished 37th out of 39 competitors in Sunday's men's singles event for luge.
In a country where cricket is the pastime of choice, and where temperatures are scorching for much of the year, winter sports have never gained much traction here.
"People haven't been bothered much about the developments on the Olympics front," said T.S. Sampath, a businessman in New Delhi and an avid sports lover. "It's not been very important for me even though I'm a sports lover because I don't think our performance level is good at the (winter) Olympics."
The quiet reaction to the Olympic snub is starkly different from the national mood ahead of the Commonwealth Games of 2010, which deeply embarrassed India on its own turf. India's preparations for the games were seen as an international humiliation, with filthy athletes' housing, a collapsed pedestrian bridge, security worries, corruption accusations and even an outbreak of dengue fever.
Still, the Olympic snafu was no small matter, particularly as the country tries to showcase its clout as a superpower.
"It's a big disgrace to be suspended because of any reason, more so because we were seen to have tainted officials," said Randhir Singh, a member of the IOC and a former secretary-general of India's national Olympic body. "It's a matter of shame if a country's athletes are unable to participate under the national flag, irrespective of how many medals you're expected to win."
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