Uttar Pradesh Announces 246 Athletes For Khelo India Camps

They will compete in 13 disciplines and will train at various coaching camps

Updated on: 23 January 2018 7:26 pm

Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday announced that 246 athletes in 13 disciplines will train at the various coaching camps for the first Khelo India School Games, to be held in New Delhi from January 31.

The hockey teams (boys and girls) as well as the swimming squad will train in Lucknow, the volleyball (boys and girls) and kabaddi (boys) teams and badminton players will be based in Faizabad, the judo squad will be in Saharanpur and the gymnastics team will prepare in Agra while Meerut will host camps for wrestling, athletics, boxing, weightlifting, shooting and archery, said Avadh Naresh Sharma, UP Director of Secondary Education.

The UP athletics team exuded confidence that the athletes included National Junior 800m champion Vaseem Tomar (Dr. Ambedkar Public Junior High School, Saharanpur), 14-year-old National Junior high jump champion Khyati Mathur (Modern Public School, Meerut), shot putter Anshika Pal, sprinter Rahul Sharma and middle-distance runner Uttam Yadav.

Uttar Pradesh, whose basketball, football and kho-kho teams have not qualified for the Games, is determined to give its best shot in the 13 disciplines. The breakdown of the contingent is: athletics (77), hockey (36), wrestlers (29), volleyball (24), Judo (17), shooting (16), kabaddi (12), weightlifting (12), badminton (8), gymnastics (7), swimming (7) and archery (1).

Uttar Pradesh Education Deputy Director Jitendra Kumar Malik and Raatn Muni Jain Inter-College Principal Dr Anil Vashisht have been named Chef de Mission and Deputy Chef de Mission of the Uttar Pradesh contingent.

The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports will organise the Khelo India School Games 2018 under Khelo India Programme (for athletes) from January 31 to February 8. School going children between 10 to 18 years of age can participate in these games through registration at their respective schools.

Khelo India is a national programme for the development of sports in India. The Central govt. will spend around Rs. 1,756 crore for this programme from 2017-2020. Under this programme, the govt. will select 1,000 athletes and will provide them Rs.5 lakh as scholarship for the next eight years. These games will be live telecast on STAR Sports channel.