 Early Times Report
JAMMU, Feb 24: Seven young athletes, including a girl, today qualified for the GAIL Indian Speedstar from Jammu district of the Jammu and Kashmir. The event was part of the initiative taken by National Yuva Cooperative Society (NYCS) as part of nationwide campaign to find out athletes for 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Among the qualifiers were Tarandeep Singh (12.58 seconds) and Yasmeen Akhtar (14.41 seconds) in under-14 boys and girls group respectively in 100 meters category. However, in 200 meters event of same age group no one could touch the qualifying mark.
Meanwhile, in under-17 category as many as five boys qualified for the next round. Keshav Singh Chib (11.93), Rahul Singh (12.01) Imran Farooq (12.27) figured among the qualifiers in 100 meters event. Similarly, Imran Farooq (24.25) was shortlisted for 200 meters event and Abhinav Kundal (2:05.49 minutes) in 800 meters. Earlier, in the morning, Speaker, J&K Legislative Assembly, Kavinder Gupta declared open the event amidst introduction with the participants. Later, in the afternoon, Secretary, J&K State Sports Council, Jawaid Ahmed along with Joint Secretary, Shiv Kumar Sharma presented certificates to those qualified for the next round. The visiting guests were provided with details of the event by state coordinator of the NYCS, Opinder Sharma, who was accompanied by other visiting technical staff. He expressed his thanks to the J&K State Sports Council and Sports Authority of India (SAI) for extending cooperation in making the event a success. Around 700 athletes from over 30 schools from different part of Jammu district were the participant, he added. Also present were Dhiraj Bali, state representative NYCS, Ambedker Gupta, sports coordinator, Narotam Sharma, DR NYCS, Dr Anil Sharma, Vivek Sharma, Gourav Jamwal, Vishal Gandotra and Prem Sadotra. Important to mention here that to explore the potential, National Yuva Cooperative Society has taken up a project GAIL INDIAN SPEEDSTAR project ,a CSR initiative by GAIL (India) Limited aims to spot, screen, select and groom young athletes in the age group of 11-17 years in 100m, 200m and 800m track events across the country.
The initiative in its first year will be covering 55 districts across 10 states of the country and the best athletes from each district would be called for state trials and subsequently the best athletes from each state will be called for a National trials scheduled in April 2016.
The top athletes who meet the benchmark set by the National selection committee headed by the legendary PT Usha with the other members being Olympians, Rachita Mistry, Anuradha Biswal and Asian and Commonwealth Games medalist, Kavita Raut, will be provided specialized training so as to prepare them for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. |
