Karate player Priyanka Chopre wants to return gold medal after suffering neglect

Priyanka Chopre, who hails from Betul, Madhya Pradesh, has expressed her desire to return the gold medal that she had won in the 2017 Karate event in Agra, Uttar Pradesh.

Priyanka has been forced to take this step after being ignored by the administration. The Karate gold medalist has also not received the gold medal certificate so far.

Priyanka has written a letter to Betul collector, expressing her desire to return the gold medal. In her letter to DM, Priyanka wrote that she did not get the gold medal certificate even after two years of winning the gold medal in the ISF World Combat Games 2017 in Agra.

She had defeated the players from Brazil and China in the ISF tournament in 2017. Due to a lack of gold medal certificate, she could not get admission to the Sports Academy of Bhopal and this also led to no scholarship.

Priyanka further writes that even after giving the information to the District Sports Officer in writing, she did not get a women coach for the national and international competitions conducted by the School Education Department.

Priyanka also said that she had to go to competitions at her own expense. She has not even received the daily allowance from the past two years. In a letter sent to DM, Priyanka has written that her father is a laborer and she is hardly able to bear the cost of her studies and karate training, in such a situation she wants to return the gold medal, unhappy with being neglect’.

On the other hand, sports officer Jagdeep Verma says that Priyanka has got a certificate to participate in the competition but she has not got the gold medal certificate. It was found out no Karate player was given the certificate of winning the medal."We want Priyanka not to return the gold medal won by her hard work. We are in correspondence with senior officials to ascertain why Priyanka has not been able to get the certificate." At the same time, Priyanka says that she will return her gold medal on the birthday of Chief Minister Kamal Nath.

(With inputs from Rajesh Bhatia)