NEW DELHI: The inaugural Khelo India School Games (KISG) beginning in the country’s capital on January 31 will feature world junior champion shooter Anish Bhanwala (Haryana) and IWF World Youth Weightlifting Championships silver medallist Jeremy Lalrinnunga (Mizoram).
15 year old Anish Bhanwala won gold in the 25 metre standard pistol competition in the ISSF Junior World Championship in Suhl, Germany, in July last year while Mizoram’s 15-year-old Jeremy Lalrinnunga, who trains at the Army Boys Sports Company in Pune, won silver in the IWF World Junior Championships in Bangkok in April last. Andhra Pradesh recurve archer Bommadevara Dhiraj, fresh from winning five gold medals in the SGFI National competition in Ahmedabad last month, will be another high-profile competitor, says an IANS report.
The KISF organising committee has received 3298 nominations alreay, and it is expected that eventually, as many as 4452 athletes and officials from 36 states and union territories will feature in the 16 disciplines in which competitions will be held as the first step in the seamless journey from school to Olympic Games.
Archery, athletics, badminton, boxing, gymnastics, judo, shooting, swimming, weightlifting and wrestling are the 10 disciplines featuring individual competitors while basketball, football, hockey, kabaddi, kho-kho and volleyball are the six team sports that are part of the inaugural KISG.
Delhi with 341 confirmations, and Maharashtra with 321 confirmations, lead the pack. Haryana, which will end up with the most entries in the Khelo India School Games with 350, is in the process of finalising its nominations, the report says.
Expectedly, athletics will have the largest participation, with 640 boys and girls vying for 36 gold medals. Swimming will feature 592 competitors seeking to claim the 35 gold medals that are up for grabs. There is a total of 197 gold medals in the inaugural edition of the Khelo India School Games. Wrestling (30 gold medals) takes the third spot with 480 grapplers while boxing (26 gold medals) is the other sport in which more than 400 participants are expected to vie for honours.
Gymnastics, whose popularity is on the rise in the wake of Dipa Karmakar’s spectacular showing in the 2016 Rio Olympics, will have 84 competitors.
