Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, June 23
Surjit Hockey Academy on Wednesday celebrated International Olympic Day here at Surjit Hockey Stadium, Burlton Park. The celebrations kicked off the International Olympic Day with a cake cut by players and the office-bearers of the academy.
Surjit Academy celebrates Int’l Olympic Day
- International Olympic Day is celebrated on June 23 all over the world. The day embraces all through pure Olympic values. Athletes from every nation participate in sports activities such as runs, exhibitions, music, and educational seminars on this day.
Dronacharya Awardee and Olympian Rajinder Singh (Junior), who recently got appointed as the Chief Hockey Coach by the Punjab Government, congratulated all the players on this day. Expressing concern over the falling standard of women’s hockey in Punjab, he said the Department of Sports, Punjab, would soon take up hockey at the grass-root level in the state with full planning so that more Punjabi players can make their place in the Indian hockey team.
Harjot Kaur of Surjit Hockey Academy also read a paper on International Olympic Day on the occasion. Earlier, the players paid tributes to late Milkha Singh and his wife Nirmal Milkha Singh.
Speaking on the occasion, Surjit Hockey Society general secretary Iqbal Singh Sandhu said Punjab led the country in hockey but the selection of only one player Gurjit Kaur in Indian women team for Olympics-2021 is a testament to the sharp decline in the level of women’s hockey in Punjab. As many as nine players are in Olympic hockey squad from neighbouring state Haryana.
Sandhu said Government Senior (Girls) Secondary School, Nehru Garden, Jalandhar, had been running the country’s leading girls hockey training centre for almost 40 years now and Olympian and International players like Nisha Sharma, Harpreet Kaur, Ajinder Kaur, Rajni Sharma, Surjit Bajwa, Sharanjit Kaur and Rajbir Kaur are the products of this hockey centre.
Apart from producing Olympians, international and national athletes, Punjab had the honour of winning the highest number of national championships till 2016, but this excellent hockey centre got permanently closed in 2016.
Sandhu said a hockey academy for girls should be established in Jalandhar without any further delay. He also demanded that an experienced woman hockey coach should be appointed to impart hockey training who could better understand the difficulties of the women players.
Standard of women’s hockey witnesses a decline in Punjab
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