Its matter of great pride as Sports and Youth Services Department of Odisha expressed their willingness to host the 22nd Asian Athletics Championship here at the Kalinga Stadium here in the month of July 1 to 4. Earlier, it was finalised that the Birsa Munda Stadium in Ranchi would host the event.
In this context Athletic Federation of India secretary CK Valson visited the infrastructure here at Kalinga Stadium on Thursday and met the sports and Youth Services Minister Sudam Marandi and secretary cum commissioner Vishal Dev.
The State Government has come forward to support the event which will be staged in India for the third time, the previous editions being New Delhi (1989) and Pune (2013).
The relaying of the synthetic track of the stadium is on process, me are expecting the track will be completed well before the meet.
In the previous edition in Wuhan (China), India had bagged five gold, four silver and four bronze medals to finish third in the medals table behind China and Qatar.
Nearly 800 athletes from 45 countries are expected to take part. The winners of the Asian
meet will get a direct berth for the World championship in london from August 4 to 13.
We are fully satisfied with the infrastructure here,
the Government also taking special interest to organize such a mega event. The
international airport along with the hotel facilities is quite good. We will put forward our suggestion to the
Asian Federation to
conduct the meet at Kalinga Stadium, said CK Valson.