Bhubaneswar, April 25: Former sportspersons Dilip Tirkey and Bhupinder Singh have come out in support of Odia sprinters Srabani Nanda and Amiya Mallick, whose record-breaking performances at Olympic qualifier in New Delhi was nullified following a technical glitch.

Mallick and Nanda performed brilliantly and clocked an incredible 10.09sec and 11.23 sec to win the men's and women's 100m sprint against the Rio qualifications norms of 10.16 sec and 11.32 sec. However, their joy was short-lived when they came to know that their performances would not be considered valid as they were recorded manually following a power outage and would have to try again at another event.

Hand timings are not considered valid for record purposes and hence will not be counted for Olympic qualifications.

The issue will be raised in the Rajya Sabha by Odia politicians, while the sports fraternity feel this is unfortunate.

Rajya Sabha MPs Dillip Tirkey and Bhupinder Singh have decided to raise the issue during the Zero Hour.

"This happened due to carelessness of the organisers. Taking part in qualifying rounds is a big opportunity in itself and when you perform and still do not get through for such reasons it can be frustrating for the athlete. I have written to the Union sports ministry to look into the matter and will also raise the issue during the Zero Hour," said Tirkey, international hockey player and former Indian captain and Olympian.

Singh who was a 400metre and 800metre national champion in athletics said that repeating a performance in this sport would not be easy.

"From the wind direction to fitness anything could affect your performance. We will definitely demand that Mallick and Nanda's timings at the Grand Prix are considered," said Singh.

Mallick has, however, returned to Bhubaneswar to prepare for the upcoming Federation Cup National Senior Athletics Championship.

"We registered record timings, but now we hear it was manually recorded. It is up to the Athletics Federation of India and its technical committee to give the clarification if we still qualify for Olympics or not," he said.

"It will be unfortunate if this effort goes in vain because every athlete dreams of taking part in Olympics. We have a couple of national and international events to again qualify for the same. But this sport is all about muscle strength and fitness. It may be difficult to repeat the feat in another set up," he said about the Federation Cup and European athletic events he was eyeing to take part in.

Olympian athlete Anuradha Biswal said she hoped that both the Odia athletes who were in their best form could qualify for Rio in the upcoming events.

The state sports department secretary Saswat Mishra, however, said that the timing was recorded manually for all athletes and not just Odia athletes.

"The organisers were not partial to Odia athletes. All athletes' timings were recorded manually. So, we are not pursuing the matter as of now," said Mishra.