Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Monsoon blues

Rains washed out the sheen of the junior athletic meet held in Vijayawada, reports J. R. SHRIDHARAN

PHOTO: CH. VIJAYA BHASKAR

HIGH SPIRITS Rains played spoilsport.

The recently concluded AP State junior athletic meet at Vijayawada will be remembered for all the wrong reasons. With the monsoon playing spoilsport, the playing arena of Indira Gandhi Municipal Corporation Stadium was reduced to a cesspool, forcing the event to be shifted to the adjacent football grounds, which offered little place for the athletes to showcase their talent. That the meet witnessed no new record itself signifies the lackadaisical performance by the young athletes in the age group of u-14 to u-20. As there was no provision for a 400m track in the football grounds, the track events were held in unfinished 200m track. Many coaches felt that it was time Sports Authority of Andhra Pradesh (SAAP) and Andhra Pradesh Amateur Athletic Association (APAAA) bifurcated the junior championship into two meets. "It is difficult to conduct events for 1,500 in u-14, u-16, u-18 and u-20 age segments in three days. In case if weather plays truant, it would be all the more difficult to conduct events," feels Vinayak Prasad, SAAP coach, who trains athletes from Krishna district. Non-availability of records set by athletes in the previous meets took the sheen out of the meet.

Notable performance

The Krishna district athletes, with their string of impressive performances, will remember the meet. Krishna girls won the overall championship by garnering maximum points. The meet witnessed a couple of notable performances by Krishna district athletes training at CBR Centre for Excellence based at Acharya Nagarjuna University (ANU) in Guntur dstrict.

Says Mr. Prasad: "This academy is the brainchild of Mr. Chalasani Babu Rajendra Prasad, a lover of athletics, who has signed a Morandum of Understanding (MoU) with ANU to train 18 best athletes for the 2010 Commonwealth Games at New Delhi. He has agreed to spend Rs. 1 crore till 2010 to impart advanced training to athletes for the prestigious meet."

Talented athletes like Asha Mary, Roja, Ratna Rekha, Kranti, Swathi, Bharata Reddy, Durga Prasad and Ashok are undergoing vigorous training under the tutelage of Vinayak Prasad.

Impressed by the commitment of Mr. CBR Prasad, the Sports Authority of India has deputed Vinayak Prasad to the foundation to impart special training to the select athletes.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail