Pakistan not to participate in 2015 Track Asia Cup

New Delhi, Nov 16: Pakistan will not participate in the three-day 2015 Track Asia Cup cycling championships to be held here from Wednesday, officials confirmed on Monday.

The second edition of the tourment, organised by the Cycling Federation of India (CFI), will be held at the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex’s indoor cycling velodrome.

A list of 13 teams from 10 countries including hosts India will participate in the event, which will see around 150 athletes contesting in several categories. Only five countries took part in the iugural edition of the event last year.

Pakistan was also invited by CFI for the Class 1 Olympic qualifier event but it didn’t express interest in participating.

“Like for all Asian countries, we invited Pakistan. But didn’t get any official response from them,” CFI assistant secretary V.N Singh told IANS on Monday.

He insisted there was no official communique from the central government not to invite Pakistan despite the heightened political tensions between the two countries that has marred sporting relations in the past.

Presently it is threatening to ruin the proposed India-Pakistan cricket series scheduled at the end of the year.

“Pakistan didn’t offer any official reason for their non participation but said they are going through interl problems in their federation,” CFI secretary general Onkar Singh told IANS. IANS