The Hindu : Sport : Mittal trust wishes its athletes

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Mittal trust wishes its athletes

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The Mittal Champions Trust reiterated its policy to provide the best possible support to the deserving athletes to achieve their Olympic dreams, in a simple gathering of the Olympic bound athletes here on Friday evening.

With 14 of its athletes ready to make an impact in the Beijing Games, in athletics, archery, badminton, boxing, shooting and swimming, one of the five trustees, Amit Bhatia, expressed his happiness about the Trust being in a position to achieve its target of making a difference to Indian sports, by investing about $10 million dollars in the run-up to the London Games in 2012.

Tele-conference

‘’We have tried in the last couple of years to provide the best support. Our intention is to help you become Olympic champions. We are proud of you. You will come back as heroes from Beijing,” said Amit Bhatia as he addressed the athletes and the media in a tele-conference from London on Friday.

World No. 15 badminton prodigy, 18-year-old Saina Nehwal, archer Mangal Singh Champia, boxers Akhil Kumar, Dinesh Kumar and Jitender Kumar; the successful Korean archery coach Lee Wang Woo, physiotherapist Heath Mathews of South Africa and the administrator of the Trust, former tennis star Manisha Malhotra, interacted with the media. The other supported athletes, headed for the Olympics, discus thrower Krishna Poonia, triple-jumper Renjith Maheswary, archer Laishram Bombayla Devi, shooters Manavjit Singh Sandhu, Mansher Singh, Abhinav Bindra, Avneet Kaur Sidhu and Anjali Bhagwat and swimmer Virdhawal Khade, were busy with their training, either in Beijing already or elsewhere, and thus could not attend.

Main target

“Our main target is the Olympics in 2012 in London. We are pleased with the progress. It is really fantastic that 14 of our athletes are heading to the Beijing Games.

If I say that I want 14 gold medals, it will not happen. Am sure that they will give their best performances,” said Bhatia, even as he looked at the philosophical side of life, while viewing the case of Ronjan Sodhi, the double trap shooter who won a gold with two world records in the last World Cup, but could not get an entry for the Games.

Assuring that appropriate rewards would be given to those winning medals, Bhatia pointed out that the whole country would be happy to reward the Olympic medallists.

The boxers left in the early hours of Saturday for Beijing while Heath Mathews, taken in the squad after his case was pleaded by Akhil Kumar, was schedule to leave later in the day.

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