Unpleasant welcome for Okuhara in India, future safety ensured

Former world champion and Olympic medallist shuttler Nozomi Okuhara’s harrowing experience after her touchdown in India was “unfortunate and won’t happen in the future”, an embarrassed Badminton Association of India (BAI) general secretary Sanjay Mishra said on Wednesday.
However, in the local organizing committee’s defence, the all-powerful BAI secretary general said that the ace Japanese shuttler didn’t send any e-mail informing the logistical details (local travel and accommodation), which could have ensured proper arrangements prior to her arrival.
“I understand what Okuhara must have been through, but the fact is we didn’t receive any email regarding accommodation or transportation from her end. It is both a technical issue and a matter of miscommunication. We had no information,” Mishra said.
The 28-year-old Okuhara took to the social media platform fansnet.jp to narrate her ordeal after being harassed and duped by cab drivers at Delhi airport and not getting any official transportation after arriving in Cuttack on Monday to play the Odisha Open.
She also had to wait for four hours to check in at the hotel and wasn’t provided with a shuttle bus or car for her scheduled 8 am practice session. Terming it as an unfortunate incident, Mishra promised that nothing of this sort would happen in the future. “It is unfortunate, but the moment I came to know about it I spoke to the organisers and they provided all the help. She is a big player and our guest, and we will ensure nothing of this sort happens in the future.” A former world No. 1, Okuhara, who claimed the Syed Modi International Super 300 title in Lucknow and skipped the Guwahati event next week, had arrived in New Delhi via Hong Kong on Sunday night.
It was then that her ordeal started. First, a stranger put her luggage on a trolley at the Delhi airport, and then she was duped by a private taxi driver, as she ended up paying 10 times more than what an Uber would have cost her to reach a nearby hotel from the airport for an overnight stay.