Indians shine at World Youth Boxing
New Delhi: Indian boxers began their World Youth Championships campaign on a brilliant note with three of them advancing to the second round after notching up resounding wins in their opening bouts in Sofia, Bulgaria on Tuesday. Two men and a woman from India are in the second round of the event which, for the first time, has combined the two competitions. The Championship is doubling up as a qualifying tournament for the Youth Olympics, slated from August 16 to 28 in Nanjing, China. The winners for India today were former junior world Nikhat Zareen (51kg) in the women’s competition, while Sathish Kumar (56kg) and Shyam Kakara (49kg) advanced in men’s event.
‘Happy at Ganguly owning ISl team’
New Delhi: The national team’s two top footballers, Syed Rahim Nabi and Ishfaq Ahmed, on Tuesday welcomed Sourav Ganguly’s decision to co-own the Kolkata franchise in the much-anticipated Indian Super league, and said his presence will attract more number of people into the stadia. Former captain Sourav Ganguly bagged the Kolkata team for the inaugural eight-team football tournament that will be held in September-October. “I have always said dada is welcome. We have learnt a lot watching him play cricket. Now that he has come to football, I am sure he must have done so after giving it a thought. “Not just his cricket supporters, dada is loved by everyone in Kolkata, and I don’t have to say that... Everyone knows that. More and more number of people will go to the stadiums not just to support the team, but also for love of dada,” the 28-year-old Nabi,told extra time.
Sourabh, Arvind progress in Nz
New Delhi: Indian shuttlers Sourabh Verma and Arvind Bhat the second round of the men’s singles event at the SkyCity New Zealand Open with contrasting wins over their respective rivals in Auckland on Tuesday. While second seeded Sourabh got the better of local lad James Eunson in straight games, fifth seed Arvind had to dug deep to beat Malaysia’s Zhen Ting lim. Sourabh defeated Eunson 21-16 21-14 in 30 minutes, while Arvind, the German Open champion took 33 minutes to prevail over lim 21-9 14-21 21-7 at the North Shore Events Centre.
Bopanna-Qureshi in pre-quarters Monte Carlo: Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-haq Qureshi overcame a stiff resistance from Julian Knowle and Vasek Pospisil before moving to the pre-quarterfinals of the ATP Monte Carlo Rolex Masters, here on Tuesday. The Indo-Pak pair battled past the Austrian-Canadian combo 7-6 (2) 6-4 in one hour and 15 minutes in its opening round of the euro 3,452,415 clay court event. There was no break of serve in the opening set as Knowle and Pospisil saved both the chances they faced. In the second set, Bopanna and Qureshi were broken but they managed to break their rivals twice to seal the issue.
CBI’s special unit for sports fraud
New Delhi: To check ‘fixing’ in sports, CBI has set up a dedicated ‘Sport Integrity Unit’ to look into cases of fraud, including betting in any sporting event. “The stated objectives of this Sport Integrity Unit include investigating and inquiring into matters related to sports fraud, combating malpractices in sports and coordinating with sports federations and law enforcement agencies,” CBI Director Ranjit Sinha said on Tuesday. Currently, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Australian Federal Police and certain European countries have specialised units to check sports fraud. CBI had held discussions with officials of ICC and FIFA before setting up the unit.