Denmark's Mia Blichfeldt has slammed the playing conditions at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium, which is hosting the India Open Super 750 badminton tournament, and also criticised the pollution levels in the national capital, calling such conditions "unhealthy and unacceptable." The world no. 23 had picked up a stomach infection but managed to fight through the second round before losing 21-13 16-21 8-21 to China's Wang Zhi Yi.
"Finally home after a long and stressful week in India. It's 2 years in a row now that I get sick during India Open," Blichfeldt wrote on Instagram.
"It's really hard to accept that many weeks of work and preparing, gets wasted because of bad conditions. It's not fair to anyone that we have to train and play in smog, birds shitting on the courts, and dirt everywhere.
"These conditions are too unhealthy and unacceptable. @bwf.official. I'm happy that I managed the second round, but I'm far from satisfied." The Badminton Association of India (BAI), on its part, said that it faced "logistical challenges" after getting the venue just four days before the event and it is looking for "alternative venues" to host the iconic event.
"As the host and staging authority for the Yonex Sunrise India Open, the Badminton Association of India gains access to the stadium and its infrastructure only four days before the event, which poses significant logistical challenges," BAI secretary Sanjay Mishra said in a statement on Saturday.
"We are already in discussions with the BWF to explore alternative venues and are actively evaluating the infrastructure options," he added.
Following her loss on Thursday, Blichfeldt told the BWF media team that she had thrown up all night and was barely able to get on the court the next day for her second round match.
"That night (Tuesday) was terrible. The only sleep I got was in the morning because I kept throwing up all night. I'm really tired now and my body is really dead," Blichfeldt had said.
"It's not so nice for me, but I'm happy with the match I pulled yesterday and the outcome today but I wish I could have gone to court at 100 per cent. It happened Tuesday evening. It took a lot of mental work (to get on court).
"It's really frustrating when you've been training to come to these tournaments and then this is one of the things that stops you from performing." French mixed doubles pair of Thom Gicquel and Delphine Delrue had also expressed concerns about the weather conditions on Thursday.
"The playing hall is pretty nice. But the weather is pretty cold here in Delhi and the pollution is really high right now, so it's not easy to play, not the best conditions to play in," Gicquel had said.
This is not an isolated incident, as during the 2023 Syed Modi International Super 300 tournament, foreign players had also raised concerns about the poor conditions at the Babu Banarasi Das Indoor Stadium, citing issues such as bird droppings and dust-laden courts.
A few days later, Malaysian Soong Joo Ven took to social media to complain about muddy brown water leaking from a basin faucet at his hotel upon his arrival in Guwahati for the Guwahati Masters Super 100. Additionally, former world number 1 Nozomi Okuhara of Japan claimed to have had a nightmarish experience during the Odisha Open, where she was overcharged by a private cabbie and then made to wait for more than four hours to check into a hotel in Cuttack.
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