Indian Technical official’s questionable act declaring Vidusha’s last jump foul created controversy and island nation may have lost possible medal due to that the 22nd Asian Athletics Championship at Bhuwaneswar .
The official declared Vidusha Lakshani’s last attempt as illegal by raising the red flag which SL official stated that it was close to 13.50m or more.
Surprisingly , the Indian official did not immediately raise the flag after take-off but waited until the jump was completed to raise the flag, which raised many eye brows.
When Vidusha questioned the technical official as to why the red flag was raised, the official showed the take-off mark of a spike which wasn’t Vidusha’s as she took off from the different position of the take-off board.
When she protested the Indian technical official did not say anything while allowing the next jumper to complete the jump after which workers wiped out the sand area making it impossible to measure Vidusha’s jump again.
Vidusha kept protesting and after one more jump the Indian official asked her to take the matter to the International Technical official (ITO) who was in charge of the event. The ITO failed to show her the video of the jump and it took him half an hour to make a decision.
She was given another jump under protest but it was useless because by then Vidusha’s body had relaxed as she was protesting for a long time seeking an explanation from the ITO, who took half an hour to decide.
This was just another example of poor technical practice carried out at the championship where Indian officials who were in charge seemed to lack proper technical knowledge to work in an Asian level event. Vidusha finished fourth with her best leap of 13.33 which was her fifth attempt . since Vidusha was disqualified in the last attempt her Indian girl NV Sheena finished third who had leap of 13.42m . Event was won by Kazakhstan’s Mariya Ovchinnikova with leap of 13.72m while Irina Ektova of same country won silver with 13.62m .
Vidusha’s jumps were increasing as her four legal jump went as 13.13,13.17,13.30 and 13.33m . She was placed 3rd after 5th jump but Indian girl leaped 13.42m in the last and Vidusha’s last jump was made foul by Indian TO.