Bhubaneshwar for six years. Nine international tournaments. Two of them are the World Cup of Hockey. The other is the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup. Asian Athletics Championship and World Badminton Tour. There are other national competitions including ISL, Santosh Trophy, Hockey League. Odisha impresses with the title of ‘Sports Capital of India’. The basis is European-style residential hostels. The hostel is for children aged 9 to 16 years. Food, accommodation and study are all part of this. Hostels focus on 11 sports like hockey, athletics, swimming etc. There are a total of 16 residential hostels in 15 districts. There are special hostels in tribal areas. Stadiums The ‘Abhinav Bindra Targeting Performance Center’ at the Bhubaneswar Kalinga Stadium is one of the five centers established by Olympic gold medalist Abhinav Bindra. The work is in collaboration with Odisha Government. The priority is to heal the injuries of the players and maintain their sportsmanship. “Usually an athlete needs 48 hours to recover after a performance. But, here with technical help it will be done in four hours. Recovery is the most important thing’– Abhinav Bindra Targeting Performance Center Head Dr. Karthik Doshi says. Ten years ago, Barabati Stadium in Cuttack was the only major sports venue in Odisha. But today the story has changed. Birsa Munda International Stadium in Rourkala is the largest hockey stadium in the world. Hockey, football, athletics, basketball, tennis, volleyball and swimming competitions will be held at the Kalinga Sports Complex in Bhubaneswar. A wrestling center was started in Puri, famous for its wrestlers. In Ganjam and Berhampur, famous for weightlifting, indoor stadiums were also built for this purpose. The major turning point was the high performance centers partnering with large companies in the country. The project has been launched with focus on corporates, federations and players. As part of this, ‘High Performance Centres’ were started. The government will prepare the infrastructure including the stadium. The companies will pay for the kits, accommodation, food, foreign coaches for the players. This allowed the players to focus on performance without financial worries. Currently companies like Tata, JSW and Reliance are all part of High Performance Centre. The trumpet sounds ‘The seeds are sown. Now is the time for harvesting’- Odisha Sports Director R Vinaykrishna said. Apart from hockey, Odisha has won medals in national junior championships in football, badminton, archery, athletics, swimming and rugby. In 2013, the government acquired a franchise in the Indian Hockey League called the Kalinga Lancers. Later, attention was paid to fields like football, athletics, rugby, swimming and basketball. In this year’s budget, the government has set aside Rs 719 crore for the sports sector. 96 indoor stadiums are under construction. The Odisha government is also the sponsor of the Indian men’s and women’s hockey team and the Indian junior football team. Read on deshabhimani.com
