MNS:- Governor, Gurbhachan Jagat today inaugurated 23rd National Canoe Sprint Championship, 2012-13 at the newly developed Water Sports Complex at Komlakhong. Addressing the function he said, “Canoeing and Kayaking is a fairly new sport in Manipur with the Association formed in 1995. But during the short period, it has been able to produce about 33 International paddlers besides five National coaches. This shows that the Association is active and works hard towards the development of the sport in the State. We now have two water sports complex, one at Takmu and one here. As developing and maintaining such complexes are costly, I wonder whether Manipur can sustain the two complexes. However, I hope that the facilities available are fully utilised by the Association and the paddlers.
He congratulated the State Association for their efforts in organizing this Championship and and thanked the National Federation for awarding this Championship to Manipur. He expressed good wishes to the Chairman of the Organising Committee, Dr. Kh. Ratankumar Singh, Minister (Works & Transport) and his team for the initiative and the onerous responsibility of not only developing this Complex but also for acquiring new boats and paddles for this Championship.
This Championship, is being participated in by about 700 paddlers from about 20 teams and for Manipur it is no easy thing to provide accommodation to them. He said sufficient accommodations is provided so that the paddlers can concentrate on the competition. Manipur, because of its location, does not have much opportunity to conduct National level Championships, but this year this is the third discipline in which Manipur has conducted National Level Championships. He thanked all the participants for their coming to Manipur to compete. It must be realized that any team from Manipur has to travel the tiring journey for every competition held. Spreading the championships across the country provides an avenue for the sportspersons to know every part of the country, which will bring better understanding among different communities. This championship, he hoped will provide an impetus to our young paddlers and motivation to specialize in canoeing and kayaking and will also attract more youth towards this sport. As everyone is aware, the field of sports has become very competitive and every discipline has to compete with other disciplines not only for spectators but also for competitors. Some games have large followings, but other games are also growing at a fast pace. The objective is to attract more for better competition, leading even to amendments to the rules to make it more competitive and attractive.Works minister Ratankumar also made a speech at the function. He said, “My connection with Canoeing and Kayaking dates back to 2009 when the first state Canoeing and Kayaking Championship was organized.”
He said, since then, he had been the chairman of all the state championships.
“I have thrilled with this adventurous and Olympic sport. I dream of this sport to bring in this lesser known part of the famous Loktak Lake, the largest fresh water lake of Northeast India.”
He said driving forces behind his dreams were T Dushanta Singh, organising secretary of the 23rd National Canoe Sprint Championship, IS Bindra, former president, IKCA and BS Khushawa, secretary general, IKCA.
Read more / Original news source: http://manipur-mail.com/national-canoe-sprint-championship/
