On 21 July there were reports of Switzerland Junior Squash player Ambre Allinckx pulling out of the World Junior Squash Championship that is going on in Chennai, citing the reason that “India is unsafe for women”, turns out that the reports were untrue.
According to a release sent by Squash Rackets Federation of India (SRFI), Allinckx’s parents Igor and Valerie clarified in a message to squashsite.co.uk, a leading squash website, that “we, as parent, never were concerned about safety in India. This is a lie or a journalist invention.”
“We wanted to have summer holidays as a family and due to the father (Igor) work this has to take place in July. So nothing in our decision was about safety. Ambre has already travel to Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Poland, France, Germany, Czech Republic, Italy, Mexico, etc and we never considered India as a place more dangerous that these ones. We never read articles or saw TV emission about this. Again, this is speculation, or invention,” they wrote.
They also wrote that it had been decided in September last year not to send the girl to the tournament for two reasons and also they had not read about India being a “dangerous place.”
“We decided already in September last year not to send Ambre to this year Junior World Championship for two reasons. She is still young as she turned 16 in March. She played the European U-17 Team this year and will play World Junior in the next 2 years. Last year, at the season end, she was very tired so we didn’t want to physically over charge her,” they clarified.
The Swiss player’s parents also said they would be delighted to visit India on another occasion.
“We, the Allinckx family and Ambre, would be delighted to visit India at another occasion. But right now she is shocked that so many people show hate to her. Please stop this!”