I called social media sprint sensations for trials to appear hands-on: Rijiju

Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju on Sunday conceded that calling for urgent trials for social media sprint sensations, seen running with buffaloes, were decisions taken under pressure to appear hands-on in his job.

Kambala jockey Srinivas Gowda of Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh's Rameshwar Gurjar hit national headlines last year for running in slushy and dusty fields respectively.

They were believed to have completed 100m sprints in 11 seconds, creating a flutter on social media platforms, where some dubbed them -- one after another -- the next Usain Bolt.

"In Madhya Pradesh somebody had a video of a village boy's running and posted it on social media, commented that he runs faster than Usain Bolt. When it became viral, I could have ignored it but suppose I don't react on that time, people will say the sports minister is silent, is not taking cognizance," he said.

In the trial though, Gurjar could not live up to the expectations and could barely complete the 100m distance in 12.9 seconds.

Rijiju added, "Shivraj Singh Chouhan also asked me to look into the matter. So I sent my SAI team to test the guy in Bhopal. I knew his capability but the country doesn't know what is the nature of sports. People just started saying he runs faster than Bolt and that is because lack of awareness."
"During the test he wouldn't even compete with the junior guys forget the seniors, he can't run even 13 seconds flat in 100m. He never trained, he was 25-26 so age was also not on his side, he didn't know how to wear spikes."