Madikeri:
The picturesque plantation district of Kodagu has three stick-wielding aces – V R Raghunath, S V Sunil and S K Uthappa – representing India in the men’s field hockey competition at the London Olympics.
The coffee-growing outback with an area of 4,102 sqkm nestled in the Western Ghats is often celebrated as the cradle of Indian hockey. Among the more recognised of players from this region to have got Olympian status are MP Ganesh and BP Govinda, who played in the terrorist-hit 1972 Games in Munich. Govinda appeared on the Olympic stage for a second time four years later in Montreal. MM Somaya played for India in 1980 and 1984 before leading the team in Seoul in 1988 when B K Subramani was also in the mix.
here are two other Kodavas in the fray at the London Games this time – big-serving Rohan Bopanna and badminton’s glamour girl Ashwini Ponnappa. However, it is the hockey players who have long held a special place in the hearts of Indian sporting fans, even if the public wakes up to the magic of the sport once every four years.
S V Suresh has been the guiding force behind younger brother Sunil ever since their parents passed away. The older sibling is overjoyed that the Madikeri boy will be donning the India colours in UK.
The 27-year-old drag-flicker Raghunath is the son of Vokkaligara Ramachandra, a native of Hathur near Gonikoppal. Raghunath, religious in routine, has been playing the game since he was nine . Sannuvanda Neeraja and Vasanth Kushalappa the parents of Uthappa are natives of Hebbale Bevarapura in the southern part of the district.
In all there are five players from the state in the Indian side with Ignace Tirkey and captain and custodian Bharath Chetri completing the line-up.
Olympian A B Subbaiah applauded Hockey India (HI) in recognizing the merit of the players. “Hockey Karnataka came forward to encourage and support the competent players. HI selected 32 players for honorary remuneration. Seven of those players are from Kodagu. That’s good for us,” he said.
Pandanda Kuttappa is the founder president of the Kodava Cup, a hockey festival for families which sees a couple of hundred teams from the area compete each summer for a three-week period. The event was started in 1997, for the 850 families of the community. There’s no age or sex bar for the competition, which has a large number of mixed-gender teams in the fray. Kuttappa said the tournament was a grooming ground for young talent.
In London, the eight-time Olympic gold medalists will start their campaign against the Netherlands on July 30. India are in Pool B along with Germany, Korea, New Zealand, Belgium and Netherlands. The matches will be played at the attractive setting of the Riverbank Arena. India will watch, and Kodagu will cheer.
source: http://www.articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com / Home> City> Hubli / by G. Rajendra, TNN / July 28th, 2012
