The Ministry of Sports has decided to offer a sum of Rs 1 lakh to every athlete, who has so far qualified for Rio 2016. The call was taken, following a meeting with the officials of various federations and Rakesh Gupta, who is the chef-de-mission for the Rio Summer Games, in Delhi on Monday.
89 Indian athletes have qualified for the Games so far, scheduled to be held from the 5th of August to the 21st of August and each of them will be receiving a total of 3 lakhs for the next three months.
Those athletes who are a part of the Government’s Target Olympics Podium Scheme(TOPS) and the National Sports Development Fund(NSDF) will be the beneficiaries of this bonus from the sports ministry.
"The ministry has decided to support the Rio-bound athletes in every possible way to brighten their medal chances. The athletes can utilise this amount according to their own training programme and the amount will be directly credit to their bank account every month starting May 10, ” A federation official told dna.
The Rio Olympic Organising Committee have agreed to the request put forth by the Archery Association of India(AAI) to allow the Indian archers to stay outside the Games village.
It is likely to take more than an hour for the archers to travel from the village to the location where the competition will be held and so the AAI put forth a request to the Indian Olympic Association(IOA) asking for outside accommodation, which was then sent to the committee, who approved the request.
