Utkal Karate School on February 27 felicitated renowned bodybuilder and internationally acclaimed power lifter Kartikeshwar Jena, who won the silver medal in the fourth junior and master national bodybuilding competition held in Imphal, Manipur, in February. The championship was organised by the Indian Bodybuilders Federation, the only accredited national federation. Jena was selected by the Odisha Bodybuilding Association and represented the state in the event.

Hockey cheers

Renowned hockey coach from Odisha, Biswa Ranjan Sarangi, has been appointed as an umpire for the fourth Hockey India Senior Men’s National Championship- 2014 in the B division.

The championship, which is being held at Lucknow, began from February 27 and will continue till March 13. Sarangi, who works at the accountant-general’s office in Bhubaneswar, had also officiated as an umpire in the previous Hockey India championships.

In another development, emerging Hockey umpire Nishanjyoti Mohanty has been appointed to officiate the Fourth National Junior Women’s Hockey Division- B Championship to be held at Mahishur in Karnataka from March 15 to 23. Mohanty, who works with East Coast Railway, has earlier officiated many matches.

The newly formed team, named Hockey Gangpur-Odisha, has made an impressive debut in division B of the 4th Hockey India Senior Men National Championship, which commenced at Major Dhyan Chand Hockey Stadium in Lucknow on February 27. It defeated Puducherry by 9-2 and Bengal 5-1 in its first two matches.

Black & white moves

Soundarya Kumar Pradhan of Odisha came third in the Blind National-A Chess competition at Ganpat Rao Barttak Bhavan at Basai in Mumbai. The competition that started on February 23 concluded on March 3. Soundarya drew the eleventh round of the tournament with former National-A champion from Gujarat, Darpan Irani, to get eight points and secured the highest ranking of his career. He will now represent the national-A team for the second year in a trot as the youngest member. He will represent India in the World Blind Chess tournament to be held in Greece in the first week of May this year. In this tournament, Karnataka’s Kishan Ganguly emerged champion while Darpan Irani came second. Another Odisha player, Prativa Prachurya, came eighth.

Karate honours

Renowned martial art trainer Hari Prasad Pattnayak has got the seventh dan black belt and accredited coach certificate from World Karate Federation (WFK). Pattnayak is the first Odia to get such dual accreditation and is now among just a handful of such achievers in the country.

In the last batch of self-defence training programme organised by the state higher education department, 71 girls were provided martial art training. They completed their training on February 27. A total of 616 girls from the 30 districts have been trained in self-defence and they would work as master trainers. These master trainers would provide self-defence training to all the Plus-II and Plus-III girls in the state. The state government has made it mandatory for all college girls to be trained in self-defence.

Tennis tourney

The Falcon-AITA 50k Men’s Ranking Tennis Tournament-2014 started on March 3 at Kalinga Stadium Tennis Complex, in Bhubaneswar. The event is being organised by the Odisha Tennis Association (OTA) and has been sanctioned by All-Indian Tennis Association (AITA). It will conclude on March 7. The qualifying matches were played on March 1 and March 2, from which eight players were selected for the main draw that started on March 3. Players from 14 states are taking part in the tournament. Ten players from Odisha, including Chinmay Pradhan as the top seed, are contesting in the event. Six players from the top 100 ranked in the country are fighting for the tournament that has total prize money of Rs 50,000. In the first day, top seed Chinmaya Pradhan won his match.

Cricket action

Odisha has been performing abysmally in the ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy, east zone, being played at Ranchi.

While it has lost two one-day matches to Bengal and low-ranked Tripura, inclement weather forced the team to share two points with Assam. With one match remaining, Odisha is placed at the bottom of the table in the east zone. On February 27, Bengal defeated Odisha by 38 runs on a rain curtailed match. Odisha were 95 for 6 in 23 overs chasing Bengal’s 202, when rain stopped the match.

In its second encounter on February 28, rain again played spoilsport while Assam were 128 for 6 in 17 overs. The third match of the season was on March 3 in which Tripura won by six wickets after packing Odisha off for 124. Odisha will face hosts Jharkhand on March 7 in its last match of the season. There is no chance of Odisha progressing to second round. In the ongoing Kalahandi Cup, on March 3, Rourkela, Koraput, Bhubaneswar-B, Puri, KIIT and Baragarh won their respective matches held at six different venues in Cuttack.

In the last round of matches, while Rourkela defeated Bhadrak by 61 runs at Ravenshaw ground, Koraput won against Nuapada by 135 runs at Nimpur ground. Bhubaneswar-B won its match against Balangir by 78 runs at Bidanasi ground while Puri chased down Jharsuguda’s 215 losing seven wickets at Sunshine ground. In the two other matches, KIIT defeated Nabarangpur convincingly by six wickets at SCB medical college ground while Baragarh won its match against Phulbani by 158 runs at Driems ground.