On Monday I had completed my ten years at Sports Authority of India (SAI) coach at Cuttack. But I have never seen such infrastructure and arrangement in a junior level athletics camp. I am confident that in future Kalinga Stadium will be the permanent venue for national athletic preparation camp, said chief coach of the east zone athletic camp Sushant Roy.
The best part of the Kalinga Stadium is having the synthetic track for the practices and the accommodation facility inside the stadium is at par with any good standard of hotels in the city. Normally the SAI conducting the camps in different SAI centers, but here the facility is more comfortable than any another place, said Sushant.
From 1997 to 2003 I was the coach of national junior and senior teams in various camps. I got the opportunity to join Cuttack SAI center in the year 2005 on August 17. Believe or not Cuttack was the oldest center of eastern zone and it is the second oldest in India, was established by NIS. That attracted me the most and joined in Cuttack.
In Odisha many a times it was felt vacuum of athletes. In the past we had Rachita Mistry, Anuradha Biswal and after that present bunch of players Srabani Nanda, Purnima Hemram, Amiya Kumar Mallick and Dutee Chand.
We are not short of talents need to put constant and continuous effort to nourish them. If players would get the chance to practices with better players then their standard will improve, such national camps would help them a lot, added Sushant.