The shirt Indian badminton star Chirag Shetty wore while winning the historic men's doubles gold medal at the Hangzhou Asian Games 2023 will be auctioned on Sunday, November 26. The shirt has been signed by Chirag and his doubles partner Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, and the money raised from the auction will be used to set up a global sports programme for up to 900 children in a remote village in Tamil Nadu. (Badminton News)
The sport programme will take place at Sri Meikandaar Matric Higher Secondary School, which was built by the NGO HUMAN Uplift and is situated in the village of Mannachanallur in Trichy, Tamil Nadu. The area has a vast number of Dalit children, whose families have no means to send their kids to school.
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The shirt will be auctioned by the charity 'Solibad - Badminton Without Borders'. The auction will begin at 2pm on November 26 on Solibad’s Instagram account @solibad_charity, and continue until the last bid at 8pm. The winner of the auction will also get a signed photo of Chirag and Satwiksairaj along with the shirt.
Describing his motivation for the auction, Chirag said: “Giving back and helping children in need is really something that fulfills me and makes me really happy, more than anything else.” Chirag and his India teammates had raised more than 5,000 US dollars in a previous auction with a signed shirt from their victorious Thomas Cup campaign in 2022.
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Chirag and Satwiksairaj are currently in action at the China Masters badminton tournament, where they have reached the semi-finals. The duo recently experienced the high of briefly becoming the World Number 1 pair in the BWF rankings too.
