The Sports-India Community

Hmm. Just realised that there is no dedicated athletics thread rather a Anju George co-opted thread. When I have better internet connections (i.e. when I back home again next week) I'll fix that.

In the meanwhile the Tata Group again went ahead and today announced the established of the Tata Athletic Academy on the line of the famous TFA and maybe not so famous TAA(Tata Archery Academy) that they already run. This should help the development of Indian athletes in general just like their TFA does for football.

I should say this for the Tata Group, they are probably the group that is most often in the limelight for supporting and developing sports from the grassroots level. I am sure that there are others but the Tata's are doing a fair bit as well, along with sponsoring the Tata Open and Narain K etc. etc. but you never really hear of the Reliance group in the same vien. Yes, there are other big companies but most of those are fairly new and Sahara sponsors thr national cricket and hockey teams but Tata I find seems to do a lot of the work in the background as well which is nice to see.

Tata Archery Academy is really doing well.

Thanks to TAA, we have so many good archers from the tribal belt.

Credit should also go to dedicated Coach Sanjiva Singh, an Olympian himself.

I totally agree with Dhruv remark about the support given by the Tatas vs other
big groups. It is also reflected in the way they do their business as well. The only
car that has been builit (from scratch) in India is the Tata Indica. Others choose the easy way -- so in sports, they sponsor things which will give them greatest publicity, i.e., cricket and so on. I wish that there were more big business houses like the Tatas.

I completely agree with you guys. India needs more sponsors like Tatas!

For people who may not be aware of triathalon, it is an event consisting of swimming, bicycling and running. In some triathalon events it will involve swimming about 3 miles, biking about 120 miles and then running about 26 miles! One of my physician colleagues and her husband are national level triathletes in USA, and have regularly participated in the Ironman competition in Hawaii. Knowing how hard they train daily (she finally had to get hip replacement surgery) I have great respect and admiration for people who participate in this sport.

India has an Indian Triathalon Fedration and recently hosted the 12th Asian Triathlon Championships in Chennai on 2nd November 2003. 120 athletes from 14 Asian countries entered the event, including India fielding a team of 14 triathletes. The Indian Junior Girls Team of T.S Kavya, S Kanthamani from the Indian Triathlon Academy and Sneha Shampur from Karnataka won the bronze medal in the Junior Girls Team. The Indian junior boys team finished a close 4th.

Japan won 4 of the 6 individual championships and also took all 4 Team Awards. China and Khazakastan won the other 2 championships.

Sharmaji,
Its amazing how you get all this info.

Kanthamani is a very promising youngster from a very poor background.
Coach Brett is all praise for her and predicts big things in the coming years.

I still remember a few years back when Ms Rekha Ramachandran used to take those huge utensils full of ``porridge'' in the middle of the night to those fisherman kids on the beach. All of them used to flock around her. But porridge only for those who take part in the morn practice.

Kanthamani is one of them now in the academy at Chennai.

Thanks David for the compliment although getting info. these days is easy if one is interested and keeps his or her eyes and ears open. I have been fascinated by the triathletes for a long time ever since one of my colleagues started participating in triathlon, and three of my medical students would participate in team triathlon.

Is it true that Kanthamani or one of the other junior female triathletes was not a good swimmer until she started training at the academy?

Kanthamani is a good swimmer since she come from fisherman backgroud but was weak in cycling till she joined the academy. But most of the Indians are poor in cycling technique. Now the coach brought some good foreign bikes and expert mechanics. So things are much better.

I still remember how Amudha Chandran missed the qualifying mark for Sydney Olympics because of a faulty cylce.

India has officially bid to host the 2009 World Athletics Championship. The bidding cities are Delhi, Berlin, Brisbane, Brussels, Casablanca, Taegu, Split and Valencia. The event is held on odd number years and the next two events are in Helsinki, Finland (2005) and Osaka, Japan (2007).

I

still remember a few years back when Ms Rekha Ramachandran used to take those huge utensils full of ``porridge'' in the middle of the night to those fisherman kids on the beach. All of them used to flock around her. But porridge only for those who take part in the morn practice.

Interesting information!!!! Triathlon academy in chennai? Where is it located?

Indian Triathlon Academy
Dr Radhakrishnan Salai
12/29 A, 9th street,
Mylapore,
Chennai 600 004

I think it was a rented building. But they were planning for a permanent structure. I don't know if they moved but this is the address last year.
Visit: www.triathlonindia.com

Bobby Aloysius won a silver each at the Asian championships and the British Indoor championship last week. she jumped 1.81 at Tehran.
she has to jump 1.91 to qualify for Olympics high jump event.

Quotes from Bobby:

At last I have got a rebirth from the disappointed debut in winter season. I won silver in British National Indoor athletics championship with a height of 1.83 in English Institute of Sports, Sheffield, where all the top British athletes and a number of Olympic and world championship medallists participated

India also won a gold through Jasmine Kaur in 3,000m walk in the Asian Championship and a bronze in high jump when Sahana Kumari finisished third after Bobby.

There are two more bronze for Long Jump and relay.

read details here:
http://www.hindu.com/2004/02/10/stories ... 781900.htm

Amritpal Singh, an asst SI with Punjab Police broke the oldest of records with a huge 8.08 M leap in fed cup long jump to eclipse 30-year Yohanan's mark.

Yohanan is the father of Kerala cricketer Tinu Yohanan. He won a medal in the Tehran Asiad.