Lahiri to miss Asian Games due to professional commitments

NEW DELHI: India’s leading golfer, Anirban Lahiri, will not feature at the Asian Games this year as the PGA Tour veteran has expressed his inability to represent the country at the multisport event due to his professional engagements, TOI has learnt.

Sources in the Harish Shetty-led Indian Golf Union (IGU) faction, which forwarded the names of golfers as part of a long list of athletes to the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), said the 38-year-old Lahiri requested the federation not to consider him for selection for the Asiad.



“He requested that his name shouldn’t be included in the long list. He said he would be unavailable during that time. So, we sent the names of nine men’s golfers to the IOA, excluding him. Lahiri would have very much made the final contingent for golf based on his world rankings had he been available,” the source said.

Lahiri was part of the four-member men’s team which featured at the Hangzhou Asiad in 2023. The other members were Khalin Joshi, SSP Chawrasia and Shubhankar Sharma.

Lahiri represented the country at the Asiad after a gap of 17 years in Hangzhou. He made his Games debut in Doha in 2006, winning a silver in the team event before turning full-time pro the next year.

Till the Jakarta Asiad in 2018, only amateur golfers were allowed to play for their respective nations, barring pro golfers from featuring at the Games. After Jakarta, the rules were tweaked by the International Golf Federation (IGF), allowing both amateur and pro golfers to represent their countries.



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