The 20-day-long east zone junior athletic camp kicks started at Kalinga Stadium here on August 15, being organised Sports Authority of India (SAI).
Total 50 athletes including 25 girls from Odisha, West Bengal, Assam, Bihar and Jharkhand are participating in the preparation camp for participation in the International competitions, in various sports, especially the priority disciplines of athletics excluding throwing events, said chief coach Sushant Roy.
The SAI is conducting camp in four different places in North, South, West and East for the junior athletes. The infrastructure facility available here is the best, in other three places the camp is conducting at SAI centers. This is first time Odisha is hosting such type of camp. In my tenure I had never saw air condition accommodation for junior athletes in camp and doctors and physio are present in the practices time, added Sushant.
The first and foremost target is the east zone athletic meet schedule to held at Deogarh from September 26 to 30. On the basis of the performance the players would be selected for the 2016 national camp. The focus would be to pick up players for the Asian Junior Championship and World Junior Championship to be held in 2016, added Sushant.
The campers are supervised by eight coaches. The coaches are Nilamadav Deo, Sahid Rizvi, Ashok Mahato and Sushant Roy and four other coaches will join the camp soon.
Nelson Tete (100 meter), Kamakya Prasad Nayak (200 meter), Prasanjit Kha Kha, Binkas Barua (both 100 meter hurdles) and Sukdev Mohanty (110 meter hurdles) are the five Odisha boys in the camp. Similarly, five Odisha girls are Tapati Sahu, Sekunta Kulu (both 100 meter), Samsad Ara Begum, Pusparani Jena (both 3000 meter), Raibari Tiria (100 meter hurdles) and Jashmin Kisku (heptathlon).