Shooters stranded for hours at airport

New Delhi: Fifteen shooters for the Commonwealth Games. including ace rifle marksman Gagan Narang, and three officials left their camp in Pune at 3pm on Saturday, but finally reached the Village only at 3am on Sunday.
First, they had to wait for two hours to get a bus. Then they had to detour to the Karni Singh shooting range to deposit their weapons and ammunition.
"We were given a good send-off in Pune at 3pm and were treated well by Air India at Pune airport. We took the flight at 6.40pm and landed in Delhi at 9pm. But by the time I checked into the room it was past 3am, over 12 hours since we left Pune," shooting national coach Sunny Thomas told TOI.
Apart from Gagan Narang, the contingent included the likes of Imran Hassan Khan, Vijay Kumar, Lajja Gauswami and Annuraj Singh.
Thomas revealed that after their arrival in Delhi domestic airport, they were taken to the international airport from where they were to be taken to the Games Village. "In fact one of our Delhi-based coaches had made transport arrangements at the domestic airport. But we could not use them as we were told that arrangements have been made at the international airport," Thomas said.
"We were made to wait for almost two hours for the bus. I don't know whether the bus was ready when we reached there. But they kept telling us that they are waiting for another shooter who was to come from abroad. Incidentally that shooter never arrived while we were waiting."
27/09/10 Times of India

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Categories: airports Sep 2010