Tiruvalluvar Univ officials irked as coach complains of contest apathy

VELLORE: Senior authorities of the Vellore-based Tiruvalluvar Universitywere irked following the secretary of the Vellore District Judo Association petitioning Collector Kumaravel Pandian to help students attached to colleges affiliated to Tiruvalluvar University to participate in state and national level judo competitions recently.

Accompanied by some judokas, association secretary CJ Sakthivel in a petition to the Collector stated that students in colleges were unable to participate in competitions due to restrictions placed on them by Tiruvalluvar University officials.

Stating that 50 boys and 50 girls were presently being trained by him in Vellore town, he said an Auxilium College student Janani trained by him had ranked II in the competition for the CM’s cup in 2019-20 while another student Niveditha had been ranked 9th in the Khelo India games and III in the state level judo competition recently.

“When students had the talent to win medals, those in colleges were restricted by the University’s attitude,” he told reporters.

When the news of his complaint reached university officials, they were incensed as the implication was that the university was wantonly stopping students from performing and attaining laurels. Asked about this, University Registrar R Vijayaraghavan told DT Next, “I plan to take legal action against Sakthivel who blamed us without justification.” Elaborating, he said, “the petitioner is a private individual and a judo coach and is in no way connected to either the university or any affiliated colleges. He only coaches students privately.” “When he came to me I clearly told him to wait as there was a process to be followed for allowing college students to participate in open and university related competitions. The rule is that when a student wants to participate in a competition, he has to apply to his college’s principal through the concerned physical director after which the application will come to us.”

Even otherwise, “We conduct meeting of all college physical directors annually where we clearly ask them if there are applications from students for participation in 30 approved games/sports. When this is the case, we wonder how and why he complained to the Collector despite having no locus standi to do so.”