Sambalpur: The seventh Khateswar Pandey Memorial All Orissa Open Swimming meet will be a one-day event and will be conducted September 10, informed working president of Orissa Master Swimmers Club (OMSC), Pradip Padhee during a press conference at the Fraser Club here Wednesday.
Speaking on the occasion, Padhee stated that approximately 350 swimmers from 20 districts are expected to take part in the event. Other officials present at the meet were Sundarmani Barik, Dilawar Hussain, Prem Ranjan Pradhan and Jayant Pandey.
Briefing the media about the competition, Sundarmani said that the competitions for male and female swimmers will be divided into various age categories. Swimmers will take part in age groups of five to nine years, nine to 11, 11 to 13, 13 to 15, 15 to 17 and 17 to 25 years respectively. There will also be a separate Masters segment where the swimmers’ age will vary between 25 to 80 years. There will be 12 categories in the Masters segment. “The top three participants among all the Master swimmers groups will qualify to represent the state at the National Masters’ Meet at Mysore next month,” informed Sundarmani.
Officials informed that the facilities at the Dr Jhasketan Sahu swimming complex here can easily be termed ‘world class’. The competition pool is 50m long and two feet deep and has 10 lanes. The added attraction is the close-by kids’ swimming pool for budding swimmers. The complex will soon have a new diving pool as well as a diving board also.
The club has also launched ‘Swim for Life’ – an ambitious, through which everybody can be educated to be ‘water friendly’. “The very intention behind it is to avert tragedies in the Mahanadi like the boat accident two years back that wiped out 31 lives,” he added.
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