Bhubaneswar, Jan 10: Orissa’s specially-abled cyclists performed brilliantly to win 14 medals including three gold in the recently-concluded National Cycling Championships at Ratu, Ranchi.
Sarita Behera and Sonali Pradhan showed their mettle in the women’s segments with gold medals in the five kilometres and two kilometres time trial events respectively. Sarita also clinched a silver in the two kilometres time trial while Sonali got one in the 1km time trial.
Rushali Jena, a first time entrant, bagged two silvers in the one kilometres time trial and 500 metres time trial respectively while Subhashree Sahoo secured a bronze medal.
In the men’s segment, the medal winners were Nihar Ranjan (gold and bronze), Pravat Baral (bronze), Santosh Mallik (silver and bronze), Subrat Nayak (silver) and Shakti Shankar Tiwari (bronze).
A team of 12 cyclists had participated in the competition under the guidance of coaches Sasmita Mohapatra, Geeta Panda and Sanjay Sahoo.
The gold and silver medal winners have a chance of to represent India in the Special Olympics World Summer Games at Abu Dhabi in 2019.
Condolence meeting
A condolence meeting was organised at Utkal Karate School here Wednesday for the sad demise of chief Grand Master of Shukokai Karate Haruyoshi Yamada Sensei at its main office in Japan. He was 80. Shukokai India chief Hari Prasad Patnaik and other members were present in the meeting.