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Thursday, March 25, 2010

localwatch

Soccer initiative for rural kidsSPT Sports Management announced its‘Soccer a Child’ initiative. ‘Soccer a Child’is a rural grassroots initiative to promoteexcellence in sports and offer talentedkids quality exposure to the game. Theprogramme entails reaching out to ruralchildren, distributing free footballs,adopting villages and imparting coachingto the children. The programme has beencarried out in nine villages since 2008. De-cathlon, the International Sports GoodsConglomerate, has associated with SPTSports Academy.

Badminton summer campBadminton Bangalore Center of Excel-lence is conducting a two-month bad-minton summer camp to identify youngtalent for a proposed long term campstarting April 1. The camp will be con-ducted for those aged between 8 and 15 at:‘Gurukul Sports Center’, Kundanahalli,and ‘Games and Fitness Institute GM-Palay’ For details, contact Biju Prasad:9880639869/ 9980160269.

TT summer campBNM Table Tennis Academy will conducta summer table tennis camp from April 8to May 25 at the academy. Venue: 27thCross, 12th Main, BSK Second Stage, Ban-galore. Details from Krunal Telang/ Anir-ban Tarafdar (mobile: 9945022469/9972035510/ 9449033480/ 9035749912) or atthe BNM campus between 5 and 7.30 pm.

It has been 16 years since PeterHoeg Gade began his journeyin international badminton. Ithas been a career that has seenhim win over 30 major titles, in-cluding the All England in 1999.And yet, when he fell in the semi-finals of the 100th All Englandto eventual winner Lee ChongWei, he was nearly in tears. It isthis burning ambition to excelthat makes this 33-year-old one ofthe greats of the modern game.

But Gade is not just an excel-lent athlete; he is an outstandingspokesman for the sport. He nev-er lets his match fortunes dictatehis post-match commitments, andhe takes every question serious-ly. An exclusive with DNA’s Dev S Sukumar at the recently-concluded All England:

You won the All England 11years ago. How has the gameevolved in the last decade?For sure it has evolved like anyother sport. You will see playersgetting faster, more explosive,more stamina... I think in themen’s singles the impressivething is, every player at the top isso complete. You look at Lin Dan

and Lee Chong Wei, and the play-ers just behind, like myself. It’s amatter of being as complete aspossible. You’re not only good atone thing, you’re good at every-thing. So that’s the difference.

You have been consistently inthe top-5 since 1998. How doyou keep up?Yeah, I’m proud of that. But Iwant to do well, you know. It’s notenough for me just to be part ofit. Hopefully in the last two yearsof my career, I can win one of thebig ones. I have to work harderthan ever. It’s also part of my mo-tivation, you know. If I can keepup physically, I know that tacti-cally and technically I’m amongthe best in the world. PhysicallyI have to work really hard and Ido. I have to keep pushing if Ihave to beat Lin Dan or LeeChong Wei.

You’ve accomplished so much…does it still hurt to lose?Of course. If it didn’t hurt tolose, I wouldn’t be here. But ofcourse when I look at the tour-nament and I know I’ve donewell, and the match (against Tau-

fik in the quarters) was a greatmemory for me… but my aim isto get closer to Lin Dan, and Ihope to continue what I’m doingbecause I’m on the right track.And there will be an award forme at some point, I believe that.

Thoughts on the 100th All England?The All England is special be-cause of its history. It’s the mostclassic. Personally, the FrenchOpen for me is as big an experi-ence because of the spectators,but the All England is about his-tory. A lot of great players haveparticipated and won, so it’s anice feeling.

It’s like one of the homes of bad-minton. And the 100th makes iteven more special.

How important are history andtradition to you, consideringyou come from a country witha rich badminton culture?Of course it matters. It mattersthat Danish players have donewell. I’ve also won the All Eng-land, it was 10 years ago… andI’m part of it, and I’m proud ofthat. Hopefully we’ll have moreDanish players in the future. It’sa very important tournament forDanish players to do well in.

The year Gopichand won the

All England, you lost a greatmatch to him in the semis…I don’t know how I lost thatmatch! That’s the only thing... be-cause if I won it, I had a goodchance of winning the All Eng-land again. Gopi played a fan-tastic tournament, all credit tohim. He took his chance and wonthe final. And it was very goodfor badminton, that we got an In-dian champion.

You were at the World Cham-pionships in India last year.What was the experience like?I enjoyed being in India, but I feltIndia got the worlds four or fiveyears too soon. There were nottoo many spectators. That was ashame. We all expected a lot ofspectators, because it was in In-dia. It was one of the worldchampionships with the fewestspectators, ever.

What’s the difference betweenTaufik and Lin Dan?It’s another kind of game.Against Taufik both of us liketo attack; against Lin Dan it’smore physical. Taufik’s attack isthe best in the world. But I knew

that if I could move him around,I could get openings. Lin Dan isalways keeping the pace all theway through. It’s very difficult tofind openings in him.

You have seen three differentscoring systems in your career.Your opinion on them?I think it’s positive for the game.If you see the men’s singles, eventhough you have Lin Dan andLee Chong Wei as the favouriteshere, they do lose. They don’tlose often, but they do lose.That’s because of the system,you know. The top 15 can beat theothers in the top ten, and that’svery important.

You have a tradition of greatbadminton players in Den-mark. Who influenced you themost?I was more influenced by Asianplayers dominating at the time.Heryanto Arbi was a big idol ofmine when I was young. It’s an-other thing when you’re in thetop yourself. It’s more likethey’re an inspiration. So I guessI’ve taken something from a lotof players.

‘It still hurts when I lose’‘It still hurts when I lose’Peter Hoeg GadeWorld No.5 badminton player

I have to work harder than ever. It’s alsopart of my motivation. If I can keep up

physically, I know that tactically and technicallyI’m among the best in the world. Physically Ihave to work really hard. I have to keep pushingif I have to beat Lin Dan or Lee Chong Wei

Mihir Vasavda. MUMBAI

It’s official. Sunil Chhetri hasbecome the third Indian foot-baller to join a foreign leagueafter the diminutive striker’sdeal with USA’s Major LeagueSoccer (MLS) side KansasCity Wizards was agreed to inprinciple on Wednesday.

Chhetri left for the US onTuesday and an official an-nouncement by the club is ex-pected to be made on Thurs-day following medical andvisa formalities. It is ru-moured that the deal would befor three to four years.

Chhetri will have a videoconference with the Indianmedia on Friday in Bangalorewhere team owner Neil Pat-terson has his company’s In-dia office.

The amount of the deal hasnot been made public yet. The25-year-old secured a releasefrom Dempo, the current I-League leaders, earlier thismonth. Chhetri had an un-successful trial with Coventrylast January and failed to signfor Queen’s Park Rangers be-cause of work permit issues.

The striker has scored 16goals for the national team in35 appearances. After Mo-hammed Salim (Celtic) andBaichung Bhutia (Bury FC),he is the third Indian to playabroad.

Wizards’ chief coach PeterVermes said he was happy

with Chhetri’s technical abil-ities. “One thing we really likeabout him is that he’s a craftyplayer. Technically he is verysharp and has good attackingtendencies,” Vermes said.

India coach Bob Houghton,too, expressed his happiness.He, however, felt that Chhetriplaying in Europe would havebeen even better.

“Had he obtained the workpermit then he could havebeen playing in Europe. Iwould have liked him to playin Europe as the standardthere is better,” Houghtonsaid. “But this is a great movefor Sunil. I hope it inspiresmore players to play abroad.”

Houghton said Chhetri’sprogress will be closely mon-itored.

“We will be monitoring hisprogress closely as he is a vi-tal member of the nationalside. I am also surprised whyBhutia didn’t play in Europeas he is highly rated there. Iam really happy for Sunil,though,” said the English-man.

(With inputs from NihalKoshie)

Sunil Chhetribags MLS deal

National coachHoughton says themove may inspiremore Indians toplay abroad

Sunil Chhetri

Sunil scored a quick-fire 84 runs to helpADE sports Club get the better of Karnata-ka Government Secretariat Cricket Club byfive wickets in the KSCA Group II- II Divi-sion League cum knockout help on Tuesday.Batting first, the government’s cricket teamscored 164 runs in 25 overs. Prashanth Shet-ty knocked 67 runs to become the highestscorer for his team while Devendra andRamesh picked up two wickets each forADE. In reply, ADE scored the winning runsin less than 25 overs.

DNA Correspondent. BANGALORE

The Karnataka State Football As-sociation will conduct the ONGCSecond Division I-League footballevent at the Bangalore FootballStadium here from March 27 toApril 15.

Seven teams, including Banga-lore-based Bharat Earth MoversLimited and Hindustan Aero-nautics Sports Club, will takepart. Two other rounds will beplayed in New Delhi and Tinsukia(Assam) and the top two fromeach group will qualify for the fi-nal round, the dates for which areyet to be announced.

“All matches will be played atthe Bangalore Football Stadium,”said KSFA president AR Khaleelin a press meet on Wednesday. Hesaid that they had made a bid tohost the final round of the event.Three foreign players per teamare allowed as per regulations andone should be Asian. Both BEMLand HASC have two Nigerians

each. In HASC, it is forward Fred-erick Okwagbe and defenderJoseph Femi and BEML haveAlexi Shamaki and A Hamza.HASC have been in good steadand posted wins against StateBank of Travancore and Travan-core Titanium Products recently,

and both teams are playing here.“We have got a chance to play

on home ground,” said HASCcoach Muralidharan. “We havebeaten some of the other teams intournaments and have the confi-dence.”

Meanwhile, Khaleel also in-formed that the two top teamsfrom Bangalore needed to formseparate entities (sports clubs) ac-cording to Asian Football Con-federation rules. Both BEML andHASC officials said that theircompanies were in the process offulfilling AFC conditions.

About distributing prize mon-ey that was promised to the jun-ior team that won the Nationalsand sub-junior team that stoodsecond in the Nationals, Khaleelsaid: “The delay was not inten-tional. We have fixed April 17 asthe date to give away the prizes.Each member of the junior teamand support staff will get Rs10,000 and each member of thesub-junior team will get Rs 5000.”

Sunil stars for ADE

Second Div I-league tokick off on Saturday

Odafe does the starturn for Churchill

D RAM RAJ.CHENNAI

Tamil film actorAjith Kumar on

Wednesday con-firmed his participa-

tion in the 2010 FIA For-mula 2 Championship.

Ajith would thus become thethird Indian in the F2 frayalong with Armaan Ebrahim

and Parthiva Sureshwaran.Ajith made his interna-

tional racing debut in 2003in the Formula BMW Asia

Championship. He finished6th in the Korean FormulaBMW event in 2004. He alsohad podium finishes in BritishFormula 3 Scholarship Class.

“I have the confidence ofachieving some success in thisyear’s FIA Formula 2 Euro-pean Championships. I havealready done some testing inMalaysia recently and amlooking forward to more prac-tice runs in Snetterton andSilverstone before the eventkicks off on April 16. I hopemy participation along with

the other two Indians, Ar-maaan Ebrahim and Parthiva

Sureshwaran, will create theright amount of interest in thesport in India,” Ajith Kumarsaid.

F2 Series director JonathanPalmer said he was ‘delightedto welcome’ Ajith to F2. “Tohave a well known Indian filmstar who has demonstratedsuch ambition racing in F2 isvery exciting for the champi-onship, and I really admireAjith’s determination and en-thusiasm. Paul Newmandemonstrated that interna-tional celebrities can be com-

petitive in international mo-tor sport - and late in his ca-reer. The F2 team and otherdrivers look forward to givingmaximum support to helpAjith become increasinglycompetitive.”

Ajith became the 17th driv-er to confirm his place in the2010 FIA Formula Two Cham-pionship line-up. Ajith, in fact,participated in the F1600 ral-ly at Irungattukottai, nearChennai, last month. Butcouldn’t finish the race due tomechanical problems.

With experience in BMW and British F3, reel hero seeks to make motorsport popular in India

Film star Ajith to race in F2 c’ship

Brief scoresKKGGSS CCCC:: 169 for 8 in 25 ovs(Prashanth Shetty 67; Ramesh 2/24,Devendra 2/24) lost to AADDEE SSCC: 173for 5 in 24 ovs (Sunil 84; HanumeGowda 3/16) by 5 wickets; HHuuttttii GGoollddMMiinneess: 176 for 4 in 30 ovs (Kariyappa50, Naveen Kumar 55, Afzal Pasha 49;S Prakash 2/31) bt SSBBII: 147 for 9 in 30ovs (S Prakash 43; Apsar Pasha 3/30,Mehaboob 2/29, Chandrashekar2/11) by 29 runs; BBMMTTCC CCCC: 47 in 18ovs (Srinivas 2/25, Raghnandan 3/15,Ramesh GR 3/1) lost to BBEELL SSCC: 48 for2 in 6.4 ovs (Samith 29) by 8 wickets;AAddvvooccaattee AAssssoocciiaattiioonn CCCC: 205 in 29.3ovs (CG Sundar 48, Shivu 40;Janardhan 2/33, Raghavendra 3/34,Krishna 3/25) bt NNAALL: 167 in 29.3 ovs(Kiran 48, Sahish 62; Harish 3/ 4) 38runs; BBoosscchh SSCC: 189 for 7 in 30 ovs(Shakheel 31, Ramesh Babu 41,Manish 60) lost to AABBBB: 190 for 4 in26.2 ovs (Jagadish 58, Dasarathy R52; V Raju 2/30) by 6 wickets; BBEEMMLLSSCC,, KKGGFF: 175 for 8 in 28 ovs (KPNMurthy 56; PJ Reddy 2/38, Mohanty3/22) bt IIAAFF: 162 all out in 26.5 ovs(Sreejith Singh 65; Prem Kumar 2/27,Khaleel 3/35) by 13 runs.

New Delhi: Star striker and captainOdafe Onyeka Okolie struck twice,once in each half, to guide I-Leaguechampions Churchill Brothers to a 2-1 victory over Al Hilal of Yemen in acrucial AFC Cup match in Sana’a onWednesday.

Odafe found the target in the 15thand 56th minutes while the YemeniLeague champions scored their goalin the 37th minute at the Ali MohsinMuraisi Stadium in Yemen.

Al Hilal, however, missed a penaltyas Brhano Qasem failed to convert inthe 10th minute of the match.

With their win, Churchill now topGroup B with four points from twomatches, having drawn their openingmatch 2-2 at home against defendingchampions Kuwait Sports Club.

The Goan team has a strong chanceto qualify for the knockout round of 16from their group.

Odafe gave his side the lead in the15th minute before the home side re-

stored parity in the 37th minute.Odafe, who had scored a goal

against Kuwait Sports Club, found theback of Al Hilal net a few minutes be-fore the hour mark which turned outto be the match winner.

In Kolkata, East Bengal fought hardbut still failed to avert their third con-secutive AFC Cup defeat and wentdown 2-3 to Al Qadsia of Kuwait at theSalt Lake Stadium on Wednesday.

Bader Al-Motawaa scored twice inthe second and 84th minutes while Je-hal Al-Hossain scored in the 19thminute in the Kuwait outfit’s first winthat helped them climb to the top ofGroup D with three points.

East Bengal showed some fightingspirit and reduced the margin throughSubhash Singh (19th) and YusifYakubu (68th) but that was not enoughto upstage the visitors. This marksEast Bengal coach Philippe de Rid-der’s 11 straight loss.

East Bengal had earlier lost to AlIttihad (Syria) 1-4 and Al Nejmeh(Lebanon) 0-3 in their AFC Cup ties tolanguish at the bottom of Group-Dwithout any point. PTI

GroupingsA (to be played inBangalore): BEML SC,HASC, Malabar United FC,Travancore TitaniumProducts, Golden Threads,SBT, Chandani FC.

B (New Delhi): AmityUnited, Hindustan FC, NDHeroes, Simla Youngs, SesaFA, ONGC, INFC.

C (Tinsukia, Assam):Guwahati Town Club, OilIndia, JCB Bhilai Brothers,Ar-Hima FC, Denzong Boyz,NISA, Mumbai United.

East Bengal crash tothird successive defeat

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