The Indian Olympic Association had jumped the gun in their eagerness to tom-tom the feats of shooter Jaspal Rana by claiming he had won the Most Valuable Player of the Doha Asian Games award before an official announcement was made to the contrary by the organisers on Friday.
DAGOC, the organising committee of the 15th Asian Games, had only told the IOA that Rana was one of the nominees for the prestigious honour.
But the IOA "misinterpreted" the information and declared the Indian pistol king as having won the award, the National Rifle Association of India said in New Delhi.
"IOA is very sorry that they misinterpreted the information given to them in Doha and passed on to us with instructions to give it to the media," NRAI's general secretary Baljit Singh Sethi said.
The NRAI had also told Rana, who won three gold medals and a silver, that he had won the award and asked him to book a flight for Doha since the pistol king had come back at the completion of the shooting competitions in Qatar.
Rana is in fact currently in Doha, courtesy the faux pas.
Sethi's clarification came in the wake of the DAGOC making a formal announcement on Friday that South Korean swimmer Tae Hwan Park had won the Most Valuable Player award and not Rana as IOA had claimed on December 12.
The Korean won three gold, one silver and three bronze and also set two Games marks.
