Checkmate
S Prasannaa of Tamil Nadu emerged champion at the K.D. Pillai Memorial All-India Fide Rating Open Chess Tournament by scoring 10 points by the end of 11 rounds. The meet was organised by All-Odisha Chess Association at KIIT University. Odisha boy Baivab Mishra was the runner-up. Rajesh Kumar Nayak and Rajat Kumar Sahoo scored 8.5 points each and were placed third and fourth, respectively.
Shooting star
Harshin Kaur from Odisha won a bronze in 10metre air pistol junior women's category in the G.V. Mavlenkar National Shooting Championship held in Mumbai last week. Twelve participants had taken part in it.
Football coach
Former Odisha footballer Reshma Begum, 31, has been appointed as the football coach at Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS). She was given the job after Achyuta Samanta, the founder of KIIT and KISS, came to know about her plight. In the 12 years of her football career, Reshma was looked up as a rising star until personal setbacks put a full stop to her career.
Team Odisha
A 16-member Odisha team will take part in the 78th cadet and sub-junior inter-state table tennis tourney and National Table Tennis Championship, which are going to be held at Siliguri in Bengal from December 1 to 6. Sweta Padma Dalai, Sushree Patnaik, Balsakhi Bal, Sohalika Sadavarma will take part in the cadet girls' category, while Nakul Jammula, Ankur Biswal, Shreyas Sahoo, Dwarika Nath Swain will take part in the boys' event. Yoshita Jammula, Sikriti Bhagat, Salonee Patnaik and Nandine Biswal will represent the state in the sub-junior girls' event and Sahil Suman Bhuyan, Mohit Behuray, Abinash Tripathy and Saswat Bal will take part in sub-junior boys' event. Kallol Gangully and Jitoo Panda will accompany the team as coach and manager, respectively.
Bronze hunt
Para-badminton world champion Pramod Bhagat from the state has bagged double bronze in the Asian Para-Badminton Championship held at Beijing, China, from November 22 to 28. Bhagat defeated Muhammad Huzairi Abdul Malek in the quarter-final, but lost He had earlier pocketed the world meet title in the year 2009, 2013 and 2015.
Volleyball fever
In the final of the volleyball tournament organised by the sports council of National Thermal Power Corporation Limited, Kaniha, the Takua team defeated Samal 2-0. As many as 325 players from 25 village teams from Kaniha block took part in the tournament. In order to promote the game, the council will host coaching camps in three villages - Rangabeda,Takua and Brahmanadei.
New jersey
Sports and youth services department director-cum-additional secretary Ananta Kishore Jena unveiled the jersey of the second edition of Bhubaneswar half-marathon on Monday. The state sports and youth services department will organise it in association with the Tata Steel on January 8. It will cover a distance of 21.1km, starting from the Kalinga Stadium.
Athletics event
The 27th State Masters' Athletics meet was held at the Kalinga Stadium on Sunday. It was inaugurated by Ananta Kishore Jena, the director of sports and youth services. The selected athletes will represent the state in the All-India Masters Athletic meet to be held at Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala in February.
Weightlifting champs
Three weightlifting championships began at Utkal Karate School from Tuesday. The 12th youth, 53rd junior men's and 29th junior women's championships are being held simultaneously. More than 700 from across the country are taking part in them.
Cricketing ties
The Odisha Cricket Association has announced its Under-16 squad that will play against Bengal in the Vijay Merchant Trophy (east zone league) at the Eden Gardens in Calcutta from December 1 to 3. Nitish Niranjan Samantray is going to lead the team, while Saswat Mohanty will be his deputy during the match. The 16-member team has two wicketkeepers.
Compiled by Anwesha Ambaly
