Category Archives: Sports

River water rafting resumes at Dubare

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Sports, Uncategorized

Adventure enthusiasts enjoy rafting at Dubare | Anil H T
Adventure enthusiasts enjoy rafting at Dubare | Anil H T

Along with the popular elephant camp, the monsoon has brought in another treat for visitors of Dubare. With the heavy downpour, river rafting in the Cauvery resumed from June 15.

There are two river rafting routes – Dubare to Balugodu (7 km) and Dubare to Cauvery Nisargadhama (12 km), says Dubare Rafting Association secretary Nangaru Jagga. To avoid unhealthy competition and accidents, all the raft owners came together to form an association.

There are now nine owners with 29 rafts to run the operation. The association has also reserved 5 per cent of its income towards maintaining cleanliness, security and other facilities.

Helmet and safety jackets are provided to rafters who are accompanied by trained youths, he added.

Tourists from Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai and the state who visit the elephant camp were thrilled about river rafting.

Shilpa and Madhav from Bangalore told Express that they would never forget the exhilarating experience of riding the waves. Another team of youngsters said the experience had tested their mental and physical strength.

For more details call Nagaru Jagga at 94491 69916.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Karnataka / by ENS – Madikeri / July 01st, 2013

Dragflicker of hope

Famous Personalities of Kodagu / Coorg, Sports

From being an underdog to Indian team vice-captain, Raghunath has come a long way.

Getty Images
Getty Images

Most sportspersons would tell you that any sport – even if it is one of the most physical – eventually has a lot to do with the mind. India’s dragflick specialist, VR Raghunath, is no exception.

Despite being part of the illustrious list of hockey players from Coorg in Karnataka, Raghunath has had his fair share of struggles early on in his career, failing to find a regular place in the senior national team. That was until Michael Nobbs took him under his wings. Raghunath then became part of the 2012 London Olympics, and is now the vice-captain of the team.

So how did it all change for 24-year-old? “I wasn’t mentally confident about myself before. Nobbs worked on my mental strength and brought my inner game out,” Raghunath told dna before the squad departed to The Netherlands for the FIH Men’s World League Round 3 (semifinals) starting on June 13.

“Thus, I’ve also been given a leadership role to support Sardar (Singh). I’m enjoying the responsibility and hope to motivate the juniors that come in.”
Talking of juniors, India fielded a young side for the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup earlier this year, and the team going for the World League also has a lot of young faces like Mandeep Singh and Manpreet Singh. Raghunath believes that the current crop of youngsters is the best India ever had.

“It’s a transformation period after the 2012 London Olympics. And because of the Hockey India League, we’re getting a lot of good talent. I think our present junior team is one of the best we’ve had over the past few years,” he said.

Raghunath is equally elated with the comeback of ace dragflicker Sandeep Singh. “Sandeep is one of the most experienced players and he knows how to play in high-intensity games. So it’s great that we can rotate our three dragflickers and have at least two penalty corner specialists on the field at a time,” he added.

Raghunath hopes the team rises to the occasion during this key tournament, which is a qualification for the FIH Men’s World Cup in 2014.

“We had a good three-week camp in Bangalore, so our preparation has been great. I prefer to take it one match at a time, and going all out in that. We hope to start well and if we do, I’m sure we can end it well,” he said.

source: http://www.dnaindia.com / DNA / Home> Sports> Report / by Rutvick Mehta / Place:Mumbai, Agency:DNA / Thursday – June 06th, 2013

Halappa makes history of sorts, named national selector

Famous Personalities of Kodagu / Coorg, Leaders, Records, All, Sports

Arjun Halappa | EPS/File
Arjun Halappa | EPS/File

Arjun Halappa, who led India in the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup hockey tournament in Malaysia in 2011, has made history of sorts by becoming the first sportsperson to be named as a national selector while still being a very active player.

Hockey India (HI) announced a panel to be headed by former star B P Govinda and which includes Arjun Halappa’s name. Arjun is still a very active player turning out for Air India in the ongoing HI nationals at Pune. Arjun made his debut for India in 2001 against Egypt in the Prime Minister’s Gold Cup. He represented the country in the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. He was also in the 2010 Commonwealth Games team in New Delhi where India were the runners-up and also picked up the Asiad bronze the same year in Guangzhou, China.

“I’m not going to hang up my boots. I will continue to represent my employers Air India. Playing will help me keep up with the latest trends in the game,” Arjun said.

“This is a very big surprise and I’m very excited. I’ve been a player and captain and this is a new challenge for me. It’s just early days and I don’t want to comment much,” he added. “As a player I will be able to provide inputs to the coaching staff,” said Arjun.

So the scenario now is that a player-cum-selector will also work as an advisor to the coaches. This is the first time in the history of Indian sport that something like this has happened. Players becoming coaches once they give up playing is an accepted norm. Players taking to umpiring is also welcome. But an active player also functioning as a selector? The move has, indeed, raised eyebrows.

The closest a player has come to also being a part of the selection process is in Indian cricket. The captain is part of the selection committee’s deliberations and gives his inputs. But he is not actually on the selection committee as in the case of Arjun.

What happens if Arjun strikes great form and has to decide on his own inclusion? He has still not announced his international retirement. At 34, he may not be in contention for a place. But what if the others want him in the team? Even if he is there on sheer merit, aspersions will be cast. Should a selector select or even drop himself only because he is a selector?

“It is too early to induct someone like Arjun into the selection committee. Yes, he surely deserves to be a selector but this is not the right time for him to be on the panel as he is still a very active player,” said former India skipper, coach and selector M P Ganesh.

“I became a selector only after 26 years of playing hockey. In fact I had even given up coaching the Indian team and only then I was part of the selection process. Young people are needed but not so young and not for the job of selection,” Ganesh added.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> The Sunday Standard / by S S Shreekumar / ENS – Bangalore / June 02nd, 2013

Vikramkant to lead K’taka in National Hockey C’ship

Famous Personalities of Kodagu / Coorg, Sports, Uncategorized

Bangalore (PTI):

Vikarmkant will lead the 19-member men’s Karnataka hockey squad for the third Senior National Championship to be held at Pune from May 28 to June 10.

S K Uthappa, adjudged the best player in 2011 Senior Nationals in Bhopal where Karnataka had finished runners-up, will be the vice-captain of the state side.

The team is being coached by 1994 World Cupper K K Poonacha.

source: http://www.ptinews.com / Press Trust of India / Home> Sports / by Staff Writer / May 30th, 2013

Badminton League to start school talent hunt

Sports

New Delhi :

The newly formed Indian Badminton League and its commercial partner, Sporty Solutionz, have launched the Indian Badminton League School Programme (IBLSP) to promote badminton across India.

Under the programme, players such as Saina Nehwal, Pullela Gopichand, Jwala Gutta, Ashwini Ponnappa, Parupalli Kashyap and PV Sindhu will be visiting 120 schools across India in six cities. The programme, called ‘Shuttle Express’, will offer an incentive of Rs 10 lakh in prize money to the winners in both boys and girls single events, which will be held in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Lucknow and Pune, it stated in a release. The finalists will also get the opportunity to train at the Pullela Gopichand Academy in Hyderabad.

The League officials said the programme will take place in three phases to scout talent through intra-school competition in July, while the national finals will be held in Mumbai in August. The IBL School Partners include Genesis Global School, Expressway (Delhi NCR), Indus World School (Hyderabad), La Martiniere Boys (Lucknow), Jamnabai Narsee, Juhu Parle (Mumbai), Symbiosis Primary & Secondary School (Pune) and Jain International School (Bangalore).

Akhilesh Das Gupta, President, Badminton Association of India and Chairman IBL Governing Council, said, “As a former player who benefited enormously from an active school environment for badminton, I’m confident that Shuttle Express will provide a great platform and opportunity to thousands of badminton-loving children to fulfil their aspirations and motivate them to take the sport as a career.”

IBL will be held in six cities from August 14 to August 31 and will feature top players in the world. The League will be telecast live in more than 100 countries.

source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com / Business Line / Home> News> Sports / by Meenakshi.v@thehindu.co.in / May 31st, 2013

Punjab register hat-trick of defeats as UP hit ground running

Famous Personalities of Kodagu / Coorg, Sports

Right after they had beaten Punjab Warriors 2-1 in their Hockey India League opener, the UP Wizards quartet of Nitin Thimmaiah, VR Raghunath, SK Uthappa and Pradhan Sommanna headed into the players’ enclosure to have coffee. The choice of beverage was easy to explain. All four hail from Coorg, famous for its coffee estates.

“All four of us studied in St. Thomas High School. The last few years have seen a lot of players coming into the national team from Coorg, and the hockey culture there is strong enough to produce even more players,” said Thimmaiah, who made his India debut in the Europe tour before the London Olympics.

Own goal

Thimmaiah and Raghunath set up the second goal for UP, an own goal from Punjab goalkeeper Jaap Stockmann that gave them an eventually decisive 2-1 lead. Raghunath, one of the experienced players of the national team, was also crucial in thwarting the likes of Jamie Dwyer and Mark Knowles. The 24-year-old was picked up for US$ 76,000 by UP and is the skipper of the team.

“It was great to be picked up for such a huge amount. A lot of our juniors in Coorg called me on the auction day and congratulated me. It was big news for hockey fans back home. Looking at the amount of players emerging from the region, I guess there will soon be a franchise from Coorg in the league,” said Raghunath.

Uttar Pradesh coach Roelant Oltmans, who was appointed Indian hockey’s high performance technical director on Thursday, said some of his youngsters would play key roles for India over the coming years. “Players like Thimmiah and Harbir Singh are the talents to look out for,” he said. “Their basics are good and they will benefit from playing alongside the likes of legends like Teun de Nooijer.”

source: http://www.indianexpress.com/ The Indian Express / Home / by Nitin Sharma / Jalandhar – Friday, January 18th, 2013

Sandalwood runs for a cause

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Sports

The 10K marathon that took place in Bangalore today saw several celebrities from the Kannada film industry participating in it. Every year we see actors from Sandalwood participating in it. But this year several actors from the industry took part.

We had actors like Pooja Gandhi, Sharmiela Mandre, Aindrita Ray, Vinayak Joshi, dancer Madhuri Upadhya and model Shubra Aiyappa, among others participating in it. Actor Puneeth Rajkumar flagged the event.

(Vinayak Joshi )
(Vinayak Joshi )

The popular RJ-turned-actor Vinayak Joshi, who once weighed as much as 121 kgs lost about 42 kgs once he took up to running. And with the actor out of Bigg Boss home, Vinayak began his new diet by giving up salt and sugar. With the TCS 10 k marathon scheduled for today morning, the actor energetically signed for the marathon today and participated in it. He tweeted, “It was an awesome run. #tcs10k was a good come back run for the running season waiting in the second half of the year. Thank u all.”

Dancer Madhuri also tweeted saying, “Ran #TCS10K ,very surreal experience!!! Thanks to @rjvinayakjoshi for introducing me to the world of running.”

source: http://www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> Entertainment> Regional / by Sharanya CR, TNN / May 19th, 2013

Athletics: Hat-trick for Poovamma

Famous Personalities of Kodagu / Coorg, Sports

M.R. Poovamma came up with a rare hat-trick of titles in the women’s 400 metres as India won 12 medals, including five gold, in the third and final leg of the rain-marred Asian Grand Prix athletics series in Colombo on Sunday.

India wound up with 13 gold, 10 silver and 11 bronze medals from the series.

Though the chase for the World Championship qualification proved elusive, Poovamma clocked 53.30 seconds in taking her third gold. She had run a personal best of 52.75 in the Federation Cup recently, when she missed the qualification by four hundredth of a second. She had clocked 52.97 in winning the first leg in Bangkok.

Arokia Rajiv came up with his second gold with a time of 46.63s in the men’s 400 metres, after the silver in the first leg. Jitin Thomas failed in his attempt to get his third gold despite scaling 2.21 metres in high jump. He was beaten by Manjula Pushpakumara of Sri Lanka by three centimetres. Nikhil Chittarasu also jumped 2.21m for the bronze.

Siddhant Thingalaya clocked 13.81s in winning the men’s 110m hurdles. In a photo finish, the JSW Foundation supported Thingalaya, who trains in Australia, pipped Rittidet Jamras of Thailand by one hundredth of a second. Thingalaya had hurt his hamstring in clocking a national record 13.65 seconds in Brussels in June last year while chasing the Olympic qualification standard of 13.60. Interestingly, the ‘B’ standard has been set at 13.50 seconds for the World Championship.

Arpinder Singh captured the gold in men’s triple jump with a leap of 16.70m. He had missed the qualification mark of 16.85m for the World Championship by one centimetre in the Federation Cup.

The results Indians unless specified): Men: 100m: 1. Al Harthi Barakat (Oma) 10.45; 2. Guo Fan (Chn) 10.45; 3. Yi Wei Chen (Tpe) 10.59. 400m: 1. Arokia Rajiv 46.63; 2. Seneviratne Kasun (Sri) 46.84; 3. Kalinga Kumara (Sri) 47.31. 5,000m: 1. Nitendra Singh 14:41.26; 2. Kheta Ram 14:41.91; 3. D.L. Samarajeewa (Sri) 14:43.15. 110m hurdles: 1. Siddhant Thingalaya 13.81; 2. Rittidet Jamras (Tha) 13.82; 3. Wan Sofian Rayzam Shah (Mas) 13.96. High jump: 1. Manjula Pushpakumara (Sri) 2.24; 2. Jitin Thomas 2.21; 3. Nikhil Chittarasu 2.21. Triple jump: 1. Arpinder Singh 16.70; 2. Roman Valiyev (Kaz) 16.42; 3. Renjith Maheswary 16.41. Shot put: 1. Wang Li Ke (Chn) 19.20; 2. Guo Yan Xiang (Chn) 19.03; 3. Grigoriy Kamulya (Uzb) 18.87; 4. Om Prakash Singh 18.20. Javelin: 1. Huang Shih Feng (Tpe) 75.85; 2. Sachith Maduranga (Sri) 73.99; 3. Jiang Xing Yu (Chn) 73.43; 7. Davinder Singh 69.33. 4x100m relay: 1. China 39.63; 2. Chinese Taipei 39.89; 3. Hong Kong 39.91; 5. India 40.14. Women: 100m: 1. Zyabikina Viktoria (Kaz) 11.69; 2. Khubbieva Guzel (Uzb) 11.70; 3. Klomdee Neeranuch (Tha) 11.90. 400m: 1. M.R. Poovamma 53.30; 2. Rakhmanova (Kaz) 53.85; 3. Anu Mariam Jose 54.63. 800m: 1. W.K.L.A. Nimali (Sri) 2:05.90; 2. Do Thi thao (Vie) 2:06.38; 3. Liliya Bazyaruk (Kaz) 2:06.68. 100m hurdles: 1. Anastasiya Soprunova (Kaz) 13.61; 2. Erawati Dedeh (Ina) 13.62; 3. Natalia Ivoniskaya (Kaz) 13.64. High jump: 1. Nadiya Dusanova (Uzb) 1.93; 2. Wang Yang (Chn) 1.89; 3. Sahana Kumari 1.79. Long jump: 1. Darya Rezmehnenko (Uzb) 6.34; 2. Yuliya Tarasova (Uzb) 6.20; 3. Katherine Kay Santos (Phi) 6.04. Javelin: 1. Lakmali B.L. Nadeeka (Sri) 58.41; 2. Chang Chunfeng (Chn) 54.05; 3. Lekamge Dilhani (Sri) 53.67; 6. Mukesh Kumari 48.34. Discus: 1. Liang Yan (Chn) 57.67; 2. Jiang Fengjing (Chn) 57.59; 3. Krishna Poonia 55.41. 4x100m relay: 1. Thailand 45.33; 2. China 45.41; 3. Sri Lanka 46.21.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Sports> Other Sports / New Delhi – May 13th, 2013

Anjaparavanda family wins Madanda cup Kodava hockey fest

Records, All, Sports

MadandaCupKF19may2013
Virajpet (Kodagu),(KBM&KMC) :

In the 17th edition of the Kodava Hockey Festival hosted by the Madanda family at the Kodava Sports and Cultural Grounds at Balugodu, Anjaparavanda team lifted the winner’s trophy in the final match played yesterday.

The Anjaparavanda team defeated Palanganda team — who were hat-trick winners of the trophy by 2-0 goals.

Anjaparavanda, which ruled the game from the beginning, succeeded in defeating the strong opponent Palanganda team, which drastically failed to convert six penalty corner options into goals.

The Hockey Festival ended on a colourful note with the valedictory programme marked by a music recital, followed by a body-builders’ show and Kolaat by Kodava artistes. Founder of the Kodava families Hockey Festival Pandanda Kuttani Kuttappa inaugurated the final match by hitting a silver ball with silver hockey stick. Virajpet MLA K.G. Bopaiah, MLC M.C. Nanaiah and other dignitaries viewed the final match in which 225 teams participated. Next year the festival will be hosted by Thathanda family.

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Sports News / May 13th, 2013

Len to train Project 2013 squad to improve on penalty corners

Famous Personalities of Kodagu / Coorg, Sports

Kuala Lumpur :

India’s former penalty corner specialist Len Aiyappa is in town to help the Project 2013 squad players improve on their penalty corner drag flicks.

The 34-year-old Len, of Bangalore, was one of the top penalty corner drag flickers in the world during his playing days from 1999 to 2005.

Len also trained the Spain National Under-21 drag flickers in 2010 and was also attached to Italian clubs for four years from 2007.

The defender, who plays for Air India in the Indian League, was also the top scorer in the Malaysia Hockey League (MHL) for three consecutive years in 2003, 2004 and 2005 – and for three different clubs (Ernst & Young, Bank Simpanan Nasional and Telekom respectively).

He was the last foreign player to win the MHL top scorer’s award in 2006.

Len, who arrived here on Wednesday, said that he was more than happy to help the Project squad drag flickers prepare for the Junior World Cup in Chandigarh, India, in December.

“Penalty corners are crucial during matches … a good drag flicker can help his team win matches. I am here to help fine-tune their flicks so that they are accurate and powerful,” said Len, who will be here for 12 days.

The five drag flickers in the Project squad are Mohd Shahril Saabah, Mohd Nor Aqmal Abdul Ghaffar, G. Kavin Kartik, Mohd Zulhairi Hashim and Mohd Aminudin Mohd Zain.

Len said he would return to KL “another four of five times” to train the Project squad drag flickers.

“My aim is to produce a good drag flicker for Malaysia for the Junior World Cup in December,” said Len.

Project squad coach K. Dharmaraj believes that Len is the perfect choice to guide and turn his youngsters into deadly penalty corner flickers.

source: http://www.thestar.com.my / The Star Online, Malaysia / Home> Sports / Friday, May 17th, 2013