BENGALURU: The Paralympic Committee of India (PCI) went into damage control mode on Thursday, cancelling the shot put event after videos of it being conducted in darkness with the help of car headlights and mobile flashlights surfaced on Wednesday. TOI had reported it on Thursday.
“An event of men’s shot put F44 was conducted in late evening on March 24. PCI has received many complaints from athletes regarding the same. An enquiry was conducted by the technical committee and it has been decided that the event stands cancelled,” the PCI said in a media release on Thursday.

“The said event shall be held again on March 26 evening or 27th morning,” PCI secretary general Gursharan Singh told TOI. Singh said the idea was to help the athletes but it didn’t go as expected. “The officials were trying to complete the event as some of the athletes who competed in it had to take part in other events the next day.”
On Thursday, organisers struggled to complete the schedule at Vidyanagar where the track events began. “I won the 100m heats but the officials have now postponed the final to Friday as they couldn’t conduct the race in the absence of floodlights,” an athlete, who will now be forced to race in both the 100m and 200m final on Friday, told TOI.
Another complaint from some state bodies was that PCI conducted classification of new athletes despite announcing that there won’t be any fresh classifications.