PNN
Bhubaneswar, Sept 18: The 39th SJFI convention concluded Sunday at a city hotel here. Present during the closing ceremony, were legendary athlete PT Usha and former billiards World Champion Geet Sethi.
Talking about the India’s failures in the Rio Games, Sethi stated that he doesn’t consider it as “a failure”. “India went to the Olympics with the expectation of winning more than the six medals they won in London. This expectation was never there earlier. It just goes to show how much Indian sports has improved,” stated Sethi.
India failed to meet the medal tally in London, even then they have a glorious success story in PV Sindhu, Sakshi Malik, Dipa Karmakar and Abhinav Bindra,” Sethi added.
He stated that we should start preparing for the 2020 and 2024 Games right away and the athletes should be provided world class facilities. He said that athletes should bother about the sports, not about other issues.
PT Usha on the other hand lamented the fact that the foreign coaches are given more importance in India than local ones. “When we asked for physiotherapist and other facilities they take weeks to come. But if a foreign coach asks for something it happens the next day,” pointed out Usha.
“ Olympic medals don’t happen in one day. It takes years to come. So the planning should be proper and world class,” she added.
Among the sports activities South Zone emerged champions in cricket while East Zone finished runners up. The table tennis team title went to Tamil Nadu while East Zone won the football shoot-out contest.
In the closing ceremony, other than Sethi and Usha, city Police Commissioner Y B Khurania and KIIT Chairman Achyuta Samant were present. Indore will host the 40th convention of SJFI in June 2017.