Antim Panghal’s coach, support staff get visa

NEW DELHI: Paris-bound wrestler Antim Panghal can finally heave a sigh of relief. After days of struggle, the visa applications of her personal coach Bhagat Singh and other support staff members were cleared by the French embassy in Delhi, allowing her team to travel with her for the Paris Olympics.
TOI has learnt that World Championships bronze medallist’s coach Bhagat, sparring partner Vikas and physio Heera Mundluru have received their passports with French visa stickers.On July 16, the govt cleared the names of all support staff members attached with Antim while approving the final list of 117 athletes and 140 coaches and support staff for the Games.
TOI had, in its edition dated July 17, published a report highlighting problems faced by Antim’s team in securing visas.
“Yes, we have received our visas with stickers. Finally, we all can now fly with Antim on Aug 3 to Paris. It was a difficult few days for all of us. We went to the Visa Facilitation Service (VFS) centre, Indian Olympic Association’s (IOA) headquarters and the French Consulate in Delhi several times, but nothing happened. Finally, when the govt intervened after Antim approached the authorities, we were able to secure the visas. We now want to focus solely on preparing Antim for the Olympics,” a support staff member said.
“Had IOA sent the mail to the consulate in a particular format for each of the support staff members in time, the consulate would have updated it in its system before intimating the VFS staff to collect the biometrics. It should have happened much earlier but now that it has been done, we want to shift our focus to the Games,” the member added.
On July 10, IOA president P T Usha had written to the visa officer at the consulate, requesting the facilitation of visa for Antim’s support staff at the earliest. Later, Usha had blamed its own three-member wrestling ad-hoc committee – which has now been disbanded – for the delay in processing visas to Antim’s support staff. Usha had said that the ad-hoc panel failed to include names of Antim’s support staff members in the long list, which was sent to the Paris Olympic Games organisers months ago.
Antim won the Paris quota for India in 53kg when she won bronze at the Worlds in Sep last.