India's elite athletes "have piled the pressure" on the Indian Olympic Association and "demanded the removal of all tainted officials in order to overturn the country's Olympic ban," according to REUTERS. The IOA was suspended by the IOC last year for electing Lalit Bhanot, "who served 11 months in jail on corruption charges, as its secretary general during its controversial December poll." The IOC "offered the country a lifeline, asking the suspended IOA to amend its constitution and, among other things, bar any person charged for corruption from holding office." But in a meeting this month, "the IOA refused such a blanket ban." Abhinav Bindra, who won India's only individual Olympic gold at the 2008 Beijing Games, said that "the administrators have failed the country." Bindra said, "The ethical standards are laid down under the Olympic Charter and to defy that is not good. It does not go well for the Olympic movement." Bindra has been joined by wrestling Bronze and Silver Medalist Sushil Kumar and multiple grand slam doubles-winning tennis player Mahesh Bhupathi "in demanding a corruption-free IOA" (REUTERS, 9/4).
