The Hindu : Sport : Need for popularising sports medicine stressed

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 09, 2005

Sport

Sport - Sports : General

Need for popularising sports medicine stressed

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, JAN. 8. The annual conference of Indian Association of Sports Medicine on Saturday underscored the need for popularising sports medicine, recognising practitioners of sports medicine and creating awareness of this wing of medicine.

The conference, being organised jointly with the Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu had sports celebrities, administrators and medical experts coming together. The noted sports couple — Anju and Bobby George — as also the evergreen Vijay Amritraj, who now doubles up as a television commentator and UN's Messenger of Peace were there.

Expectedly Amritraj stole the show with his crisp speech laced with humour. "Twenty years ago I spoke loudly on the need for government support, today a Government servant tells us what all it can do and also presents a plan for success in the Olympics", he said, in obvious reference to the enlightening presentation earlier by the SDAT Member-Secretary, P.W.C. Davidar on "Towards 2012 Olympics — developing a strategy".

Amritraj narrated how it had changed so much from his playing days. "I sent my son to work in a gym but it was only when he came under a Japanese expert did he train the kind of muscles he required for his tennis", he said of the specialised training that had come as a boon for sportspersons of present times.

At an interaction session later moderated by Dr. Sumanth Raman, the role of the government, the facilities available at SAI and the experiences of top athletes were highlighted. Taking part were Anand Natarajan, Anju and Bobby representing the athletes, Dr. Vece Paes, Dr. Sethu Ramanathan, Dr. David Rajan Dr. Kannan Pugazenthi (Sports medicine experts) and Mr. Davidar (SDAT). The experts also fielded questions from the audience.

Among others who attended the conference were Dr. J.S. Sandhu, President, IASM and Dr. Alka, Secretary, IASM. Dr. P.V. Jayasankar, Organising Secretary, welcomed the gathering. IASM Fellowship awards were presented on the occasion to Dr. Dipankar Bhattacharya, Dr. Kiran Kumar Kulkarni and Dr. Ali Irani (physiotherapist) and a souvenir was released by Amritraj.

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