Sports

Games-Powell left out of Jamaica's Gold Coast team because of injury - JAAA

March 23, 2018
Jamaica's Asafa Powell runs next to Japan's Kazuma Oseto and Australia's Aaron Stubbs during the Nitro Athletics series at the Lakeside Stadium in Melbourne, Australia, in this file photo. — Reuters
Jamaica's Asafa Powell runs next to Japan's Kazuma Oseto and Australia's Aaron Stubbs during the Nitro Athletics series at the Lakeside Stadium in Melbourne, Australia, in this file photo. — Reuters

KINGSTON — Former 100 meters world record holder Asafa Powell was left out of the Jamaica team for next month's Commonwealth Games because he was injured, the head of the country's athletics association said on Friday.

Powell, who won 100m gold at the last Commonwealth Games to be held in Australia in 2006, had expressed a desire to race on the Gold Coast despite heading towards retirement at the age of 35. The Olympic sprint relay champion was not among the 30 men named earlier this month to take part in the track and field at the April 4-15 Games, however, and the island nation's top athletics official said the reason was straightforward.

"We had a credible report that Powell had sustained an injury and therefore could not be selected," Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association President Dr. Warren Blake told Reuters. Jamaicans have won the men's 100m at the last four Commonwealth Games as the nation enjoyed a golden age in men's sprinting spearheaded by the now retired Usain Bolt.

With 2014 Glasgow champion Kemar Bailey-Cole also failing to make the team for the Gold Coast, 2011 world champion Yohan Blake will be a strong favorite to continue that run.

Blake, Bolt's former training partner and the third fastest sprinter of all time, is already in Australia with teammate Julian Forte, who ran the third fastest 100m in the world last year behind American Christian Coleman and Blake.

India's CWG squad drops

Ghosh after rape allegation

India on Friday dropped table tennis star Soumyajit Ghosh from its Commonwealth Games (CWG) squad after a teenager accused him of rape, officials said.

The Table tennis Federation of India (TTFI) executive said in a statement said that 24-year-old Ghosh had been placed under "provisional suspension".

"During the suspension, the paddler will not be able to participate in any tournament, national or international," it said. Ghosh's future will now depend on the "final outcome of the police investigation and court verdict, if any, on the alleged rape charges against him by the teenager," the TTFI added.

The complainant in eastern West Bengal state told police that they became friends through a social networking site in 2014, and Ghosh promised to marry her after she turned 18. Ghosh has denied the allegations.

"Whatever she is saying is false as I haven't done anything wrong. We were together but then I wanted to focus on my career so I told her 'it is very difficult to be with you'," he told Press Trust of India.

"After I broke things off with her, she started blackmailing me, my family and my friend circle. From the last one and a half year, she has been trying to threaten and blackmail us," he added. — Agencies


March 23, 2018
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