Fast & furious
Odia athletes performed brilliantly in the 20th Federation Cup National Senior Athletics Championship-2016, held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi. Srabani Nanda secured a gold medal while Dutee Chand secured silver in the Women’s 200 metres. Dutee had earlier won a gold medal and Srabani bagged a silver in the 100 metres dash. Purnima Hembram added one more gold in heptathlon. She scored 5,713 points to bag the top slot. Jauna Murmu, who is representing ONGC also won a gold medal in the 400 metres hurdles. Odisha bagged seven medals at the event including four gold medals, two silver and one bronze.
The 14th Federation Cup National Junior Athletics Championship-2016 will be held at Kanteerva Stadium in Bangalore from May 3 to 5. The Odisha athletics team comprising four girls and four boys will be taking part in the event. The athletes are: Kamakshya Prasad Nayak (boys’ 100 and 200 metres), Sanjay Kumar Singh (boys’ triple jump), Sukadev Mohanty (boys’ 100 metres hurdles and triple jump), Hari Behera (boys’ shot put, discus throw), Sekunta Kullu (girls’ 100 metres and long jump), Latika Basra (girls’ 200 metres and high jump), Samsad Ara Begum (girls’ 3,000 metres and 5,000 metres) and Jasmi Kisku (girls’ 400 metres hurdles)
Snooker auction
Nishant Biswal was the favourite at this year’s auction for the second edition of the Odisha Snooker Premier League that was hosted at a Bhubaneswar hotel on Sunday. The first edition was a great success, with the championship being the first of its kind in the state. The Baize Rulers won the inaugural event, defeating Blue Hawks in the final match. There will be four franchise based teams this year too. A minimum of five players will constitute each team, which is more than the number of players who went under the hammer at the auctions last year. The teams include Baize Rulers, owned by Blue Tech Products Private Limitedd; The Blue Hawks, owned by Cresco Constructions Private Limited and J.S.Industries; The Purple Squirrel, owned by Purple Squirrel (unit of interior, exterior and contract works) and The Rising Kings, owned by G.K. Estcon Private Limited. Nishant Biswal got the highest bid at Rs 22,000 while Ashutosh Padhy got Rs 20,000 for The Rising Kings. The final teams for this year are as follows:
Baize Rulers: Rakesh R.Pradhan-16,000, Jeet K.Das-12,000, Chirag Arora-4,000, Amiya R. Nayak-2,500 and Ashwini
Patnaik-2,000
Blue Hawks: Nishant Biswal-22,000, Siddharth Sen-9,000, Subhranshu Bhusan Kar-8,000, Satyadeep Das-4500 and Mohammad Raza-2,000
Purple Squirrel: Subrat Das-16,000, Jiten Sarangi-16,000, S.P.Pattnaik-3,000, Kunal Agarwal-4,000 and Sudipta Dash-4,000
Rising Kings: Asutosh Padhy-20,000, Aakash Mohapatra-10,000, Anuj Panda-8,000, Sureet Singh-2,000, Khalid Sultan-4,500 and Rumit Gupta-4,000
Smart moves
Odia girl Aparajita Gochhikar won a silver medal in the women's category of the World Amateur Chess Championship held in Greece recently with a score of 6.5 points. Gochhikar also bagged a bronze medal in the open category.
Smash & jabs
The Young Generation Table Tennis Association (YGTTA) of Cuttack is conducting a summer table tennis coaching camp for young and budding table tennis players at the Sachin Tendulkar Indoor Hall of the Barabati Stadium. The camp started on Monday and will be held daily in two sessions, one each in the morning and evening. The camp will be held till the third week of June and is conducted by coach Raj S. Subramaniam. He has coached the Indian table tennis team. Other state-level players are also pitching in with valuable tips to the trainees. Nearly 50 children have joined the camp. Odisha State Table Tennis Association is also supporting the annual camp, said Nihar Ranjan Mishra, the organising secretary of YGTTA.
Stick work
The Hockey India Senior Women’s National Championship (division A) that concluded in Bangalore, saw Odisha lose in the semi-finals. Madhya Pradesh Hockey Academy beat Hockey Odisha at the third place play off 2-1. Madhya Pradesh’s Ishika Chaudhary scored the first goal in the 12th minute and then doubled their lead in the second half by a goal from Karishma Singh. Odisha hit back with a penalty corner conversion by Asmita Barla in the 40th minute, but could not find the equaliser. In the Senior Men’s National Championship (division A), Hockey Odisha finished third. They lost to Railway Sports Promotion Board 2-3 in the semi-finals and in the third place play-off defeated Association of Indian Universities 4-0. The tournament was hosted at Saifai in Uttar Pradesh.
Innings lead
Cuttack A emerged champions beating Bhubaneswar A at the Odisha Cricket Association (OCA) Under-19 Inter-district Cricket Championship, on the basis of a first innings lead. The match played at the Barabati Stadium in Cuttack ended in a draw. Bhubaneswar A had scored 240 in their first innings following which Cuttack A scored 302 for the loss of seven wickets. Rain had interrupted play on the second day. The OCA Inter-district Women's Knockout One Day tournament will begin from May 8 at different grounds in Cuttack.
