Happy news for  Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar. The stadium will host five matches of the prestigious Hockey India League. In another success story, ace swimmer Pratyasa Ray grabbed four gold medals and a silver at the South Asian Aquatic Championships 

Mountaineering feat

Five mountaineers from Odisha, including two boys and three girls, were given a grand welcome by the Association for Adventure and Social Activities members upon their arrival at the Bhubaneswar railway station. The team has successfully completed an advanced mountaineering course in the Kashmir valley and Leh in Ladakh. The mountaineers are Chinmaya Moharana, Nrusingha Sahu, Nitu Bisoi, Sasmita Pradhan and Smita Rani Behera, who completed the course under the guidance of prominent mountaineer Ganesh Jena.

 

Beautiful game 

The Football Association of Odisha held a meeting with the state sports department on Thursday. Sanjay Behera, secretary of the association, met Vishal Kumar Deb of the state sports department and discussed proposals regarding the development of the game at length. They also discussed ways to improve the infrastructure in football. Deb also informed that chief minister Naveen Patnaik had taken personal interest in the development of football and asked him to take concrete steps to promote talents from the grassroots. 

In a different development, Oriental Warriors emerged champions at the 13th Gatikrushna Memorial Football League, defeating Chandrasekharpur Athletics Association 4-0. 

 

Dribble delight 

Hockey lovers of Odisha will be a happy lot. Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar will host as many as five matches of the prestigious Hockey India League. The first match will be played on January 22, when Kalinga Lancers will battle against Delhi Waveriders. The home team will meet Ranchi Rays on January 23, Uttar Pradesh Wizards on January 29, Jaypee Punjab Warriors on February 3 and Dabang Mumbai on February 5. The semi-final and final matches will be held in Chandigarh on February 25 and 26 respectively. 

 

Aces galore

Junior tennis star Abhishek Mohapatra won a double crown in both the singles and doubles events in the Under-14 boys’ category in the Championship Series (CS7) Tennis Tournament, which concluded at D.K.S Club in Calcutta on Friday. In the singles event, Abhisek defeated top seed Amaan Wasim of Bengal 6-1,6-2. In the semi-final, he defeated Kanav Goel of Bengal 6-2,6-2. In the doubles final, partnering with his state mate D. Aryan Swamy, he defeated Arnab Majundar and Wyatt O’Brien of Bengal 6-1,6-2. Another player from Odisha, Ameek Kiran Batth, won the doubles title in the girls’ Under-16 at the Championship series (CS7) tennis tournament at CLTA, Chandigarh partnering with Sana S. Khanna from Maharashtra. They defeated Shristi Dhir and Simran Pritam from Punjab. 

 

Sprint success

Two Odia sprinters — Purnima Hemram and Jauna Murmu — grabbed a bronze medal each at the four-day long 56th National Open Athletics Championship held at SAI Stadium, Amausi, in Lucknow. Purnima, representing the Indian Railways, bagged the bronze medal in the 4X100 metres women's relay event by clocking 46.96 seconds while Jauna from ONGC bagged the medal in the women’s 4X400 metres relay. On the inaugural day, Purnima won a gold medal in the 100 metres hurdles event clocking 13.96 seconds.

 

Aquatic queen

Odisha’s ace swimmer Pratyasa Ray (in picture) grabbed four gold medals and a silver in the Under-15 girls’ events at the six-day South Asian Aquatic Championships held in Sri Lanka from October 18 to 23. She bagged gold medals in the Under-15 girls’ 100 metres and 200 metres backstroke by clocking 1:10:91 and 2:33.29 respectively and in the 4X100 metres medley and 4X100 metres mix-medley events with a timing of 4:43.78 and 4:34.40. She bagged silver medal in the 50 metres Under-15 backstroke event with a timing of 32.82 seconds. She got a rousing welcome from the sports fraternity after she arrived from the island nation.

 

Rugby reach

Both Odisha boys’ and girls’ rugby teams emerged champions at the Societe Generale Junior (Under-18) Nationals Rugby Sevens Championship 2016 held in Mumbai on October 20 and 21. Odisha women edged out Bengal by 21-5 to regain the title. Earlier, they had defeated Kerala and Uttar Pradesh 38-0, 31-0 in the quarter and semi-final matches. The Odia boys’ team bludgeoned Tamil Nadu 26-0 to gain the title for the second time in a row. 

 

Kabaddi laurels

Sasmita Das brought laurels to the state by officiating as a referee at the Kabaddi World Cup 2016 that concluded in Ahmedabad recently. Sasmita was one of the 23 referees from across the world to officiate the event and got a rousing welcome in Bhubaneswar on Sunday. Sasmita was happy but lamented the lack of kabaddi infrastructure available in the state. She is refereeing since 2014 

 

Cricket meet

The annual general meeting of the Odisha Olympic Association was held in Cuttack on September 30. The results of the election of the cricket body were also declared and M.A. Alam was elected general secretary. Ashirbad Behera, who had been holding the post for the last 28 years, had to step down following a Supreme Court ruling due to his involvement in a land grabbing case. Samir Dey retained the president’s post. As many as 47 candidates filed their nominations for the 22 posts of the association.  

ANWESHA AMBALY