Sports Academy in Darjeeling

Darjeeling : At a time when all playing fields in the hill town are being occupied by highrises, veteran sportsmen have come together to start a sports academy in Darjeeling.

The Darjeeling United Sports Academy, which was officially inaugurated today, has been formed to revive the interest in sports among the younger generation.

“We want to create a talent pool and provide them basic coaching. Once we have identified and trained them we will allow the players to be picked up by other well-known teams. We do not want to function like clubs where it is mandatory for such players to play with the team,” said V. Pradhan, the president of the academy and a former national-level hockey player from town.

To start with, the academy has collaborated with the Police Athletics Club from Calcutta to organise a four-day conditioning camp with 10 volleyball players from the region. The camp will begin from tomorrow.

“After this we will approach the different schools so that we can identify and coach budding sportsmen in the days to come,” said Pranay Rai, chief-coordinator of the academy and Darjeeling MLA. Rai, however, promised that the academy would be apolitical and that its functioning would be guided by veteran sportsmen from the town.

Pradhan also urged the school authorities to help the academy grow. “We have had a bad experience in the past as school authorities have not been very forthcoming for reasons best known to themselves,” he said.

In the past, players from the hills regularly competed in the state and national-level championships. However, over the years there has been a decline in participation. Among the well-known patrons of the academy are Chandan Singh Rawat, an Olympian who was part of the Indian football team in the 1952 Olympics and was also a member of the side which won the gold in the 1951 Asian Games.

During the inaugural programme held at a hotel here, the academy had invited all the veteran sportsmen of the hill town, including mountaineer Nawang Gombu who had been awarded the Padmashri. All of them were felicitated.

Source: The Telegraph