Hearing impaired Indian athletes refuse to leave airport as no one came to recognise their performance at Deaflympics

ANI Photo

New Delhi: The Indian contingent of hearing impaired athletes who were in Turkey for the Deaflympics, refused to leave the New Delhi airport upon their arrival on Tuesday, expressing that they were unhappy at not seeing anyone coming for their welcome despite achieving best-ever result at the tourney.

The Indian team tallied five medals, including one gold, in the country's best showing ever performance. The contingent, which consists of 46 athletes and support staff, reportedly are not willing to change their stand and want to return their medals.

"The Indian contingent participated in a total of eight disciplines at the games. Out of those eight disciplines, we won medals in three. We won gold and bronze in wrestling, bronze in lawn tennis and silver in golf," Ketan Shah, team`s interpreter, told ANI.

"The day we won the medals, we told the government that we have made the nation proud. These medal winners made the nation proud, but no one, not even the sports minister, is here to welcome us."

"All we want is either the sports minister or any government official comes here and appreciates our players. We had informed them that we will be coming on August 1, but we haven`t got any reply. We have been trying to contact officials, but we are just being told that they are unavailable," he added. 

India's first medal at the Defalympics was won by Virender Singh in 74kg freestyle wrestling event as he beat Chakvetadze S (Georgia) by 18-9 points in the final bout. 

Even Virender Sehwag had congratulated the wrestler on Twitter, where he wrote, “Congrats to Silent King,Virender Singh from Jhajhhar district for winning Gold in 74kg freestyle event in Deaflympics & making country proud.”