Ashish Kumar and Rakesh Patra from Railways and Services team, respectively, contesting in the 54th National Senior Gymnastic Championship at Hotwar’s Ganpat Rai Stadium have a fair chance to represent India at the Commonwealth Games (CWG) 2014. Their performance on the inaugural day of the national meet on Tuesday made it clear.
Speaking about these two players, Sports Authority of India coaches said, “Both have brought laurels to our country in several international tournaments. Moreover, their improvement in the ongoing India camps for upcoming CWG and Asian Games is worth appreciable.”
“Tripura’s Dipa Karmakar and Maharashtra’s Rucha and Shravani also have some chances in CWG,” said Savita Marathe, an international judge.
This is for the first time ever that the national gymnastic championship is being held in the State Capital. Jharkhand Armed Police Additional Director General Kamal Nayan Chaubey inaugurated the game.
Expressing joy over this sports discipline Chaubey hoped that the players would return with wonderful memories. As many as 23 teams comprising around 400 players and 63 technical officials are participating here.
Seven events, including Pamell Horse, Parallel Bar, Vault, Floor Exercise, Horizontal Bar, Uneven Bar, Roman Ring and Balancing Bean are being conducted. The finals will be held on Thursday.
Day one was focused on ‘Best Team Competition’ out of which top 24 players involving boys and girls will compete for ‘All Round Championship’ on Wednesday. The Individual and Apparatus skills of these gymnasts will be done on Thursday, the concluding day of this tournament. By Friday, 55-year old American Coach Jim Holt present here as Selector for Indian players in CWG 2014 will be finalizing the five names for men and five women representing India at the global meet.
In the boy’s category Services and Railways team remained in the leading positions whereas in girls Maharashtra and Manipur managed the same positions till late evening on the inaugural day.