Kiren Rijiju expresses hope for return of sporting competitons in early 2021

94

Union Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju is hopeful for a return of sporting competitons in the nation starting from next year.

Rijiju

Since the nationwide lockdown was imposed in March, sporting tournaments has almost totally shut down in India. Although the rules of the lockdown is being gradually loosened, the Covid-19 pandemic shows no sign of slowing down, with a huge number of affected and death being on the news every day. At this moment, organising a sporting competiton may cause a heap of trouble.

India has recorded over 64 lakhs cases of Covid-19 with a heartbreaking amount of more than a lakh of citizens dying from the worldwide pandemic.

While athletes of all sports have gradually resumed training, competitions are nowhere in sight. With Tokyo Olympics 2021 and other International tournaments looming, some proper competition exposure may boost the chance of Indian athletes to win medals in the grandeur of the world stage.

“Initially I thought in the month of October some sporting activity could have taken place but it couldn’t happen because COVID cases are rising,” said Rijiju, at the Annual General Meeting of Sportscom.

The minister believes that a vaccine will come up soon and early next year, ‘fascinating’ competitons will be finally taking place.

“Though we have no sporting competitions now but as I see things emerging hopefully a vaccine will come out soon. Early next year we will have some kind of very fascinating events back in the field,” said Rijiju.

About the cases of athletes, specifically the elite international level ones being affected by Covid-19, Rijiju said: “Elite athletes are given proper training. I’m taking review of the progress on almost a daily basis. Barring a few disciplines all elite athletes are training and coaching is going on. And very soon we will start training for juniors also.”

Recently while visiting a cycling race of specially abled CRPF troops, Rijiju stated that he will take steps to emphasize training facilities for specially abled people. He also stated that cycling is an important part of India’s chances of winning medals in future Olympics, and should be given more and more importance and that he has decided to give a lot of emphasis on creating and updating facilities for better training of cycling.

If you like reading about MMA, make sure you check out MMAIndia.com

Also follow India’s biggest arm wrestling tournament at ProPanja.com

IPL 2020 Match 16 Review: DC hold off KKR following batting heroics