Mumbai, July 14 (IANS) India's squash stars Saurav Ghosal and Joshna Chinappa on Thursday said that the sport deserves to be part of the Olympic movement.
Ghosal, who is defending his men's title at the ongoing 73rd senior nationals, said it is frustrating to see and read articles of top golfers pulling out of the Games scheduled to start next month in Rio de Janeiro.
"I think every squash player in the world has made it clear that let alone win a medal being part of the Olympics is a massive achievement for them and everyone holds true to that word," Ghosal told reporters here.
"It is definitely very frustrating to see, or read articles every other day or every other week, of the world number 1, 2 of golf pulling out of the Olympics and then you have Rory McCllroy coming out and saying that it doesn't really matter," the Kolkata-born added.
Chinappa seconded Ghosal, saying that squash thoroughly deserves a place in the Olympics.
"As an athlete we all aspire to play for India and win medals for the country and I personally think that squash is such a deserving sport to be a part of the Olympics. As of now it is not there, but at the same time it does not make me a lesser athlete or my sport lesser than any other sport," Chinappa said.
"We have the Commonwealth Games, we have the Asian Games, we have our World Championships, so we look forward to that. We go back to the grind. We work as hard as any other top athlete in the world and hopefully the International Olympic Committee can see in time that squash deserves to be part of the Olympic programme," the 29-year-old added.
--IANS
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