Abhinav Bindra, India's only individual Olympic gold medallist, on Sunday said boycotting the 2022 Commonwealth Games is not an option, and advised the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) to "load" the CWG committees with more of their people so that, in future, shooting is not excluded from the games."Boycotts don't win you influence. They just make you irrelevant and punish other athletes. Abhinav Bindra Will Guide Athletes in Patiala Sports University.

Would be far better if IOA did a campaign to load the CWG committees with their people and allies and push for the inclusion of shooting onto the core list of sports for the future," Bindra said in a tweet.

IOA President Narinder Batra had sent a mail to Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju and made it clear that discussions on these lines have been had informally by IOA members. In the mail, accessed by IANS, Batra wrote: "This is with reference to the press statement of Secretary-General IOA in the month of May 2019 regarding the intention of IOA to most probably not participate in CWG 2022. The issues have also been informally discussed by IOA amongst some of the colleagues in IOA and they also agree with the views expressed by IOA Secretary-General (Rajeev Mehta)."

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 29, 2019 08:28 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).