Odia girl Pratyasha Ray won three gold medals at the 43rd Junior National Aquatic Championship held in Bangalore and nine sportspersons from Odisha have been selected to take part in the All-India Bodybuilding, Powerlifting and Weightlifting Championship
Cross passes
Cuttack emerged champions at the 57th Senior Men’s Inter-district Football Championship for the Sahani Cup, defeating Rourkela Steel Plant by 2-0 at the VSS Stadium in Sambalpur on Tuesday.
In another development, Odisha defeated Goa 2-0 in a league round match of the Junior Girls’ National Football Championship held at Barabati Stadium in Cuttack. Jasmani Samad of the winning team drew first blood in the seventh minute and after the change of sides, she scored another goal in the 67th. Later on July 10, Jharkhand and Manipur edged out Goa and Odisha by 5-2 and 3-0 goals respectively. Odisha, Goa, Manipur, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Bihar and Haryana are the top eight teams at the Girls’ Junior National Football Championship being held from July 8 to 13.
Golden girl
Odia girl Pratyasha Ray won three gold medals in the girls’ (13-14 years) category at the 43rd Junior National Aquatic Championship held at Basavangudi Aquatic Centre in Bangalore last week. She won the first medal in the 50m event by clocking 32.87 seconds and bagged the second spot in the 100m with a timing of 1 minute and 10 seconds. She won the final medal in the 200m event and all of them were in the backstroke category. Pratyasha has become the first swimmer from Odisha to win a gold medal in any national championship.
Flexing muscles
A nine-member postal sports team from Odisha has been selected to take part in the All-India Bodybuilding, Powerlifting and Weightlifting Championship schedule to be held at Alleppey, Kerala, from July 26 to 29. A tournament was held in Puri recently to select the players. Odisha’s ace bodybuilder Janmajaya Mohanty, a three-time Daka Shree titleholder, will take part in the 85kg event. Ajaya Mohapatra, S. Harichandan and Vadi Srikant will take part in the 95, 75 and 60kg categories respectively while power lifter Malaya Ranjan Pati will take part in the 95kg category. The other four weightlifters - Pradeep Sahu (56kg), Niladri Sahu (69kg), Kameswar Nayak (77kg) and Biswajit Pratihari (85kg) will also be participating.
Sprint cheer
The Indian 4x100m women’s relay team led by Odisha's ace sprinters Dutee Chand and Srabani Nanda created a new national record at the Kazakhstan National Athletics Championships, clocking 43.42 seconds at Almaty last week. The 4x100m relay quartet, comprising Dutee Chand, Srabani Nanda, H.M. Jyothi and Merlin Joseph, broke their own national record of 44.03 seconds, which they had created at the IAAF World Challenge in Beijing in China in May. They also won the gold medal at the third Indian Grand Prix held at Bangalore recently. Unfortunately, the team fell short of the qualification mark for the Rio de Janerio Olympics. The team had to clock 43.01 seconds to qualify.
Awards boost
A sports website based in Odisha, www.sportslogon.com, felicitated five players on the occasion of their 5th anniversary at Jayadev Bhavan on Sunday. Women footballer Bannya Kabiraj, hockey player Dipsan Tirkey, sprinter Srabani Nanda, coach Nilamadhab Deo and athlete Juletha Minz received the Kumudini Krida Prativa award, young emerging player of the year award, sportsperson of the year, best coach of the year and player of the bygone era awards respectively. Bannya received the trophy along with cash award of Rs 10,000 and four other awardees got the trophy along with a cash award of Rs 25,000 each.
Sixer
Two women cricketers from Odisha — Anjali Singh and Sarojini Giri — got selected in the 25-member Under-19 (Girls) squad for national camp that is being held at Guntur in Andhra Pradesh from July 8 to August 7.
Straight sets
Odisha’s Ansu Bhuyan, Avilash Mishra and Ameek Kiran Batth performed exceedingly well in the All-India Tennis Association (AITA) titles held last week. Batth won the Girls Under-16 doubles title partnering with Harleen Kaur from Haryana defeating Princy Panchal and Priyanka Jakhar in straight sets (6-2, 6-3) at the CLTA Avenue in Chandigarh. She lost to top seed and India No. 2 Sara Dev of Haryana in the Girls-Under-14 singles bagging the runners-up trophy. In another tournament at Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, Anshu Bhuyan clinched both the singles’ and doubles’ titles. In the singles,’ he defeated Irfan Hussain of Tamil Nadu 6-3, 6-2 while in the doubles final, he partnered with Avilash Mishra from Odisha, and defeated Irfan Hussain and Isshan Hussain of Tamil Nadu 6-2,6-4.
ANWESHA AMBALY?
