All of us have heard this – “ODISHA? Where’s that!! Somewhere in India? I have never heard of this place.”
Let me spell out Odisha !!
India’s Best Kept Secret is Odisha!
The first state of India to be formed on Linguistic basis is Odisha!
The Heritage and Enthralling Views you could never imagine of is Odisha!
Fine if you’re not this amplified! Lemme give a trending Name of Odisha, “Mr. Naveen Patnaik”. The man who is ranked the most popular Chief Minister of India, by India Today-ORG-Marg Mood of Nation Poll, the Master of disaster management Felicitated by United Nations (UN) for evacuating millions ahead of tropical cyclone Phailin in 2013, awarded as the Ideal Chief Minister by Former President Smt. Pratibha Patil, awarded by PETA for allocating funds to feed community animals and many more.
Now coming to the topic, let’s talk about Sports and Odisha.
Odisha has been cohered as the Sports Capital of India. The journey of Bhubaneswar from being the City of Temples to the Sport Capital of India is an inspiration. On 15th Feb’18, the International Hockey Federation bestowed the prestigious President’s Award to our Chief Minister Mr. Naveen Patnaik for his government’s contribution towards sports promotions particularly hockey. Odisha has a sentiment to host Hockey from 2013. It started when one of the finest stadiums of India was strengthened in Bhubaneswar where the successful wine and dine of the Champions Trophy Hockey Tournament in 2014 took place. There has been no looking back since Hockey India and International Hockey Federation was pleased by the potential of Bhubaneswar to marshal a tournament like Hockey.
From being the first state to be the finance help of Hockey India league “Kalinga Lancers”, Odisha has made it top under the leadership of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to bring prestige to Odisha Sports. In 2018, Odisha Government disclosed an amount of 150 crores reinforce for Five years.
Talking about Tokyo Olympics, when women’s hockey team beat the much-envisaged Australian in the quarter finals, Odisha stood by the team as the Chief Minister congratulated them in Bhubaneswar saying “What a terrific game by our Women’s hockey team against Australia”. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik clapped for the Men’s Hockey team the preceding day when they entered the Olympics semifinal after a cut of 49 years, beating The Great Britain.
Dhyan Chand led the National game for 3 successive Olympic Gold Medals in 1928,1932,1936 until the game lost its popularity in India after the defeat in 1980 Moscow Olympic finals. Odisha helped the National Game with much needed push in Champions Trophy Hockey Tournament in 2014.
Odisha government will host the World Cup Hockey for Men in 2023 at Bhubaneswar and Rourkela for the second time. Rourkela’s Sundargarh district is building the country’s biggest hockey stadium with a capacity of 20,000 eyewitnesses and will be named after the Tribal Leader Birsa Munda. Odisha will be providing synthetic turf in each 17 blocks of the district of Sundargarh to reinforce the hockey ecosystem.
The sports minister of Odisha Mr. Tusharkanti Behera added “Thanks to the vision of Naveen Patnaik that Odisha is the Sports Capital of India”, “It’s not all ‘bout Hockey but our government is patronizing many other sports starting from football to rugby”. The first ever Khelo India University Games was held in Odisha where 4000 athletes from 176 universities participated in 211 events in 17 sports events in a period of 10 days.
Odisha recently announced sports infra project worth 693 crores for building 89 multi-purpose stadiums which will be used for multiple sports including badminton, table tennis, yoga, exercises and many more. The stadium will be devised to withstand a wind speed of 200kmph to get unaffected by natural calamities.
The day is near when Naveen Babu asks “APANA MANE KHUSI TA” and the World will be loud enough to say “SABU KHUSI”.
Explore : Techies of Odisha