Pune/Kolhapur: It's been more than two months since Swapnil Kusale won a bronze medal at Paris Olympics , but the shooting champion says he is yet to hear officially about any reward from the state govt. Swapnil had clinched bronze in the men's 50m rifle 3 Position event at the Paris Games on Aug 1. With this bronze, Swapnil became the only second athlete from Maharashtra to win an individual medal at the Olympics.
The first athlete to win an individual medal, also a bronze, was wrestler Khashaba Jadhav at the 1952 Helsinki Games. Swapnil's medal came after 72 years. State govt had announced an award of Rs 1 crore a day after the shooter won the bronze, but it hasn't been communicated to Swapnil officially.
The Pune-based shooter said he got to know about the prize money from newspapers. While there was no official felicitation programme organized by govt, state minister Chandrakant Patil said govt was planning to offer a big govt post to Swapnil and that they were readying a "special package" for him. He said this at a function hosted by Gagan Narang's Gun For Glory academy in Balewadi.
However, Patil was unavailable when TOI tried to contact him for his response to Kusale's comment. While there's no sign of the ‘special package', the shooter, who is a Railways employee, said he was told to apply for a regular state govt job. "I was told to fill in a form, but I decided not to pursue that because of the clauses.
It says that the athlete would have to work from the office r.