Scintillating performance of Assam in Khelo India

Kudos to Shivangi Sarmah and all other participants of Assam who brought laurels to Assam by their scintillating performance in the just-concluded 3rd youth ‘Khelo India’ games. Shivangi Sarmah could do historic performance in swimming by winning 5 gold medals. Before the start of the games, little could be foreseen that Assam would fare so well in the game as never before in the annals of such games Assam could fare so well. Apart from Shivangi, the participants who could shine were Upasa Talukdar in gymnastics and Jinu Gogoi in lawn-bowl but above all, all the medal-winning participants deserve to be lauded. Incidentally, Lawn-bowl, swimming, weightlifting and boxing are the disciplines where the home team dominated and could collect most of the medals. Our Chief Minister repeatedly asserts that Guwahati would be the sports capital of India. The government should try to implement this ambitious plan in letter and spirit. There should always be availability of infrastructure for the sportspersons. In the just concluded ‘Khelo-India’ youth games Assam could obtain seventh ranking which is no mean an achievement. It speaks volume of the fact that there is no dearth of talents in sports in Assam, but our government should rise to the occasion to explore these talents and budget allotted to sports should be substantial. Summing up, we can say that the 3rd ‘Khelo-India’ youth games saw emergence of good number of budding sportspersons from Assam who would definitely bid rare to do something more scintillating performance in the days to come.

Ashok Bordoloi,

Dibrugarh