The Hindu : Sport : Sportspersons support policy

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Thursday, Aug 30, 2007
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Sport - Sports : General

Sportspersons support policy

NEW DELHI: A large majority of Arjuna awardees and Dronacharya awardees supported the Union Sports Ministry’s move to have a sports regulatory authority, as envisaged in the draft National Sports Policy, at a meeting convened by the ministry here on Tuesday.

The participants in the inter-active session included those awardees who were here to receive the 2006 honours and several former internationals including hockey players M. P. Ganesh and B. P. Govinda, cricketers Bishan Singh Bedi and Kapil Dev, table tennis players G. Jagannath and Indu Puri and badminton player Damayanthi Tambe.

Sportspersons and coaches generally welcomed the idea of a regulatory body and also pointed out that many of the federation officials were clinging onto their posts for decades together. This trend needed to change, they argued.

Questions were also raised about the need to appoint foreign coaches and their success rate compared to the Indian coaches.

Meanwhile, the Union Sports Minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar, on Wednesday laid the foundation stone for the facility at the Nehru Stadium Complex that will house the National Dope Testing Laboratory.

Mr. Aiyar said that the laboratory was hopeful of getting the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) accreditation early next year. When accredited it would become the sixth such lab in Asia. — Special Correspondent

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