By Dipankar De Sarkar, IANS,
London: A top English badminton player said Monday his team pulled out of the world championships in Hyderabad because security was so lax they weren’t even given armed guards in their buses.
“We were in a bus on some of the back roads, we didn’t have any armed guards, any anything… We were unsafe in that situation and the only decision was to come home,” said Olympic silver medalist Nathan Robertson.
Robertson said he and other players wanted to leave as soon as a local newspaper report about an alleged terrorist threat came to their attention.
“If anyone, as a player, reads about terrorist groups plotting to attack an event you’re participating in, not to be worried or concerned would be unnatural.”
“I wasn’t comfortable travelling to and from the arena,” he said on a day the English team was criticised by a senior opposition politician and fellow British badminton officials for withdrawing from the tournament, prompting a minister to say he will explain the action to Indian authorities.
Badminton England performance director Ian Moss said security was “very lax”. “After we came back from practising in the main hall, the security was not set up very well at all.”
William Hague, the opposition Conservative Party’s shadow foreign secretary and a senior British politician, criticised the pullout, saying, “Wherever possible we should err on the side of going ahead with normal life, in the face of terrorist threat.”
Although the British Foreign Office stressed that it had not advised the team to drop out, Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe said he supported the decision.
“You have to support them, because the players’ security has to come first,” Sutcliffe said.
But the minister added that he would be speaking to the Indian authorities about the issue and Britain would do all it could to support India ahead of the Commonwealth Games next year.
However, Anne Smillie, chief executive of Badminton Scotland, criticised her fellow-British official, saying: I think perhaps they have over-reacted. Certainly our Scottish players and our team manager, who are in Hyderabad, feel confident that security is at its best.”
Scotland has two players in the tournament and Wales has three.
But Badminton England Chief Executive Adrian Christy insisted the team had received warning of a threat “not just generally to the tournament but to specific top stars.”
“Considering the level of concern that we had, security was very poor. After the players had experienced that, they felt they couldn’t put themselves back in the performance mindset. I would suspect, on the back of our decision, security has been strengthened, but that wasn’t there when we needed it.”