Ankush Claims First Gold For India In Shooting :: CommonWealth Youth Games

Pune Oct 13 : Hosts India opened their medals tally with Ankush Bharadwaj capturing the first gold of the Games by winning the 50 meters Pistol event for men aggregating a tally of 509 points, on the second day today of the third edition of the Commonwealth Youth Games (CYG) in progress at the Shiv Chhatarapati Sports City, Balewadi here.

It was indeed an irony that only two competitors figured in the event with Middleton Murray of Falkland Island despite scoring 26 points being declared as ‘did not finish’.

Later talking to mediapersons, 18-year-old Haryana lad Ankush said he was far from satisfied with his performance today. “I should have done much better despite having no pressure at all.” Ankush mustered a tally of 536 points in the Guwahati national shooting championship. The lad, however did not hide his unsatisfactory performace but said it gives him the pleasure of winning the first gold for India to open the medal tally.

Ankush trains under coach Subash Chandra who said,”he could have brought a much better tally as he faced no competition.” On the other hand, 15 year old Murray Middleton said he was never in contention for any medal but has come to India to gain much needed competition experience.

“I treat the Pune visit merely for experience having set my sights for the 2010 Commonwealth Games to be held in Delhi,” the shy teenager said.

With only two competitors in the fray, only one medal was at stake as per the rules.

Aquilah Sudhir gave Singapore its first gold, finishing top in the women’s 10 meters Air Rifle event posting a tally of 102.0 points.

In a keen competition, the silver was bagged by Monica Fyfe of Canada recording 102.1 points to her credit and Nur Ayuni of Malaysia had to rest content with the bronze with a tally of 100.2.

“Since it is my first international, I am happy with my performance,” said Aquilah.

Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) president Michael Fennel presented the medals to the winners at the ultra-modern shooting range.

Following are the results : Finals Men: 50M Pistol: Ankush Bharadwaj (India) 509 pts (Gold) Muray Middleton (Falklands Islands) 236 (DNF) Women: Aquilah Sudhir (Singaore) 103 pts (Gold) Monoca Fyfe (Canada) 102.1 pts (Silver) Nur Ayuni (Malaysia) 100.2 pts (Bronze) UNI IS/GS AB DS1507

Source: http://living.oneindia.in/

Are Commonwealth Youth Games green games!

None of the green projects for the Commonwealth Youth Games have actually seen the light of day. Instead of planting more trees, 7000 of the existing trees were cut to make way for road widening projects for the games..

TOUTED AS the ’green games’, the Commonwealth Youth Games (CYG) have now started. While there has been a lot of talk about the ’greenery’ of these games by the organising committee, all the projects related to the ’green’ aspect have just remained on paper. It has just been used to give the games hype with hardly any groundwork to make these games environment friendly.

Early this year, the CYG organising committee, which is also the organising committee of the Commonwealth Games to be held in Delhi in 2010, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), projecting the Pune games as environment-friendly games. In the undertaking given to UNEP, the organising committee said that the games would focus on waste and water management, forestation, anti-litter campaign and sustainable transport, with the ride-and-return-cycle project.

“Rainwater harvesting, waste water treatment and recycling plant, insulated roofs, heat reflecting surfaces, low floor sanitary fittings, solar water heaters and cross ventilation are some features of the under construction buildings in Balewadi,” the presentation said. However, none of these projects have actually seen the light of day. According to details from PMC’s garden department, instead of planting more trees, 7000 of the existing trees were cut to make way for road widening projects for CYG.

While no provisions are in place for rainwater harvesting at the Balewadi facilities, there are hardly any arrangements to even drain out the wastewater from the rains. The tennis stadium is open air, and rainwater flowing down the roof over the spectator area falls into the playing area and remains accumulated there in absence of a requisite slope. The world-class standard open-air 50-mtr shooting range is also plagued by a similar fault. The range is entirely done up in wood, but without any arrangements to protect it from rains. We found that the rainwater has literally drenched the wood.

The other projects like solar water heaters, cross ventilation, waste management, anti-litter campaign, sustainable transport, no plastic at Balewadi, extensive tree plantation etc, have failed to take off. In fact, amid protests from residents at Uruli Devachi village, which houses the city’s dumping ground, the garbage bins around the city have started overflowing.

The much publicised ’Ride and Return Cycle Project’, which was touted as being the legacy for the city, as a sustainable transport system, has also fallen apart. The project involved a 200-kilometre cycle track on the main roads, with cycle stations at intervals of 20 kilometres, where people can rent a cycle at a nominal cost and deposit it at any other station.

Ranjit Gadgil, a Lead India finalist, who was to head the ride-and-return-cycle project, confirmed that the project had fallen apart. “The organising committee had called me to implement the pilot of the project as a part of the games. The pilot needed an investment of Rs 50 lakh and later the organising committee told me that they were waiting for the money to come from the municipal corporation, which never came and I came out of the project. The project was being implemented haphazardly, with no planning. They had not even prepared a DPR of the project and now the project has fallen apart.”

Source: http://www.merinews.com

Rooney Eyes Perfect 10

After leading England to an impressive 3-1 victory over Belarus last night, Wayne Rooney has set his sights on finishing World Cup qualifying with a perfect record…

The Manchester United star netted twice in Minsk as England claimed their fourth consecutive win to increase their stranglehold on UEFA Group Six.

The Three Lions will be aiming for five in a row when they take on the Ukraine in April, but Rooney is looking even further afield.

“It would be nice to win all the qualifiers,” he said in the Daily Mail. “The two most difficult games, in Belarus and Croatia, we have got out of the way and we have managed to come out with maximum points. I don’t see any reason why we can’t win all the qualifiers now.”

England have fallen pray to complacency before with major tournaments on the horizon; few will forget the embarrassment they suffered last year when they failed to qualify for the EURO 2008 finals.

However, things have gradually improved since Fabio Capello took the reins. His tactics, teams selections and disciplinary policy continue to cause the odd stir, but the results are there for all to see.

Rooney, like the rest of the squad, is determined to ignore the hype and focus on improving game by game.

“We have worked really hard to be in the position we are in and we’ve got to keep working hard,” he said. “We are in a comfortable position and we need to get as many points as possible over the remaining games.”

Rooney’s brace in Belarus took his tally to five goals in the last three games – an impressive response from a player whose goalscoring record has been widely criticised.

The former Everton player added: “I always believe I’m going to score when I go out there. I’m a confident person.”

Kieran Quentin

Source: http://www.goal.com/

Khade sinks 50m butterfly record

V.V. Subrahmanyam

PUNE: Olympian Virdhawal Khade claimed a gold and two silvers in the pool while the Indian wrestlers won three gold medals in the third Commonwealth Youth Games at the Shiv Chatrapathi Sports Complex here on Wednesday.

The 17-year-old Khade, who finished with a silver in 200m freestyle in the first event of the evening, came back strongly in the 50m butterfly event with a new Games record of 24.25, beating the mark of 24.66 set by Corney Swanepoel of New Zealand in 2004.

Scotland’s Daniel Scott (24.38) and Thomas Barrett of Australia (24.87) took the silver and bronze respectively.
Outstanding effort

Though Khade was placed fifth in the qualification timings, he came up with an outstanding performance to live up to his billing as one of the favourites.

“I did not really tire myself out in the qualifying round and just focused on making it to the final round,” Khade said.

“I was terribly disappointed with my showing in the 200m freestyle event (1:49.86). I think the endurance level of gold medallist Ryan Napoleon of Australia (1:49.62) was truly exceptional,” he added.

Edwar McKendry of Australia (1:51.93) was the bronze medallist in 200m freestyle.
Tough

“Yes, it was really tough for me to recoup after the first event. I am happy I could do it,” said a delighted Khade.In the 4×100m freestyle relay, the Indian quartet of Khade, Aaron D’Souza, N.A. Sandeep and Ashwin Menon took the silver in a time of 3:30.20.

Australia won the gold and South Africa the bronze.
Gold rush

There was a gold rush for India in wrestling with Amit Kumar (50-kg), Jitendra (54-kg) and Rahul Aware (58-kg) finishing on top of the podium.

Source: http://www.hindu.com/

Viswanathan Anand draws with Kramnik

Press Trust of India

Thursday, October 16, 2008 (Bonn (Germany))

Viswanathan Anand held an upper hand with an extra Pawn but settled for a draw in a tense encounter with Vladimir Kramnik of Russia after 32 moves in the second game of the world chess championship now underway in Bonn.

In a daring strategy, Anand abandoned his pet King Pawn (1.e4) on the first move and opted opening the game with the Queen Pawn, thus aiming to surprise his Russian opponent.

Thus, Anand seems to be aiming to sidestep Kramnik’s ploy which worked well for him against Kasparov in 2000 World Championship match.

Avoiding both the Petroff or the Berlin system of the Ruy Lopez against 1.e4, Anand may thus be trying to reach dynamic positions and invite Kramnik to come out of his shell.

If this is going to be Anand’s strategy with White pieces for the match, the world of Chess will definitely be treated to some open fights on the even-numbered games, as witnessed on Wednesday.

Starting with 1.d4 for which Kramnik responded with the Nimzo Indian Defence, Anand went in for an Open middlegame position with irrational Pawn structure, thus making his intentions clear to have an open fight.

With his unconventional 8..f5, Kramnik aimed to surprise his opponent in turn and the game entered a tense middlegame, where Anand enjoyed a slight advantage due to his Bishop pair.

Understandably, this being the early stages of the match both traded slight inaccuracies between moves 14, 17 and by move 18th, Anand had once again regained a slight initiative, though Kramnik managed to exchange Queens

Source: http://www.ndtv.com/

Improving the image of Indian football

One wonders why the All India football Federation (AIFF) took all of a dozen years to apply a concrete structure to a tattered National Football League (NFL) and make it I-League. Come to think of it, the federation didn’t have any set goals. NFL was conceived and implemented in a flash. The federation may have eyed a broader representation but somehow it was limited only to a few traditional football pockets.

One of the biggest bane is that talent flow has come from only one academy – Tata Football Academy. The AIFF has been guilty on this count, they have hardly encouraged any academies to set up shop.

While the I-League still flip-flops between a 10 or a 12-team format with national coach Bob Houghton as the guiding force, the event could still have expanded with more teams. Though the India coach talked about a 20-team EPL-like format, it seems to be nothing more than just

Source / Reference : http://sports.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/quickiearticleshow/3510739.cms

Kenya cricket crying out for help

Nairobi: There are no funds. Cricketers are becoming rarer. The government is not interested. The international community doesn’t seem to care much. Welcome to Kenyan cricket.

Five years after stunning the cricket world by making the cut for the 2003 World Cup semi-finals in South Africa, Kenyan cricket is crying out for help.

“We need to play against stronger teams,” Kenya captain Steve Tikolo told IANS here at the Nairobi Gymkhana. “We have some talented youngsters but they desperately need exposure,” added the veteran all-rounder, who is still serving as the backbone of his country’s national side.

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Steve’s elder brother Tom – serving as Cricket Kenya’s chief executive – was more vocal about the lack of support for Kenya cricket by the cricket world. He stressed that the International Cricket Council (ICC) will have to do more if it wanted to save cricket in Kenya.

“We are under-funded and feel completely ignored,” Tom said. “The ICC is giving us a grant but it’s far from enough. The government help is non-existent while sponsorship is scarce. We are looking towards the international cricket community for support,” he stressed.

The Kenyans surprised the cricket world by reaching the World Cup last-four in 2003 but since then the graph of their performance has taken a nose dive.

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They have to feature in the ICC World Cup qualifiers for the 2011 spectacle next April but are lacking in confidence ahead of the 12-nation event which will see the top four making the cut for the quadrennial spectacle to be hosted by Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

In the ongoing series against the visiting Pakistan Academy, Kenya have looked quite ordinary and Steve blames it on lack of exposure.

“We need to play more competitive games. We have to play against stronger sides otherwise it is going to be very difficult to bring any improvement in our performance,” he added.

Tom said that lack of funds and a dearth of matches against stronger teams have pushed Kenyan cricket backward.

He revealed that Cricket Kenya needs at least $1.2 million to run the sport professionally in the country but there is a shortfall of around $500,000. Kenya gets $450,000 from the ICC, $150,000 from TV rights and $100,000 from a newly-acquired sponsorship from a local company Tusker.

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“What we get currently is just not enough,” he said. “Kenya doesn’t have a cricket culture which is why we badly need a proper schools structure to find new players and that is not possible without proper funding.”

Asked why the Kenyan government was not backing cricket in the country, Tom said: “The government says it is struggling to fund campaigns against HIV Aids so how can it give money to cricket”.

“We would have become a Test side long ago if we had some big brothers,” he said referring to Bangladesh’s ascent to the Test arena with the support of Asian powers India and Pakistan. “Just before Bangladesh became a Test side we were beating them hollow and now we are nowhere in world cricket,” he lamented.

Tom is also unhappy with the lack of support shown to Kenyan cricket by neighbours South Africa and Zimbabwe – the only two Test teams from Africa.

“South Africa haven’t visited Kenya in three years in spite of our repeated request while Zimbabwe last came here in 2005. It is really frustrating,” he concluded.

Source / Reference: http://sify.com/sports/

Cricket: Stage set for repeat of massive failure

By Dylan Cleaver

Here’s a brief history lesson.

The last time New Zealand toured Australia was 2004.

The build-up to the tour was a two-test jaunt to Bangladesh where they whipped the home side in two horribly lop-sided tests.

New Zealand were then thrashed in Australia. After a promising start in Brisbane, fuelled by a brilliant Jacob Oram century, Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie both posted half centuries against a wilting attack and New Zealand crashed to a paltry 76 in the second innings, the only fight demonstrated by Craig McMillan who engaged in a ill-advised war of words with Adam Gilchrist that ended when he was dismissed next ball.

At Adelaide they simply never showed up with the most hostile spell of the tour being delivered by Ian Butler in the nets.

All-and-all, an ignominious series.

Fast forward four years and New Zealand are again preparing to play tests at the Gabba – the toughest venue in Australia since the WACA lost its sting – and the Adelaide Oval on the back of a two-test series in Bangladesh. Not just any old series but, as a bonus, a watered-down one featuring a Bangladesh team decimated by the recent ICL raid.

There’s a term for this and it reads something like “being set up for a fall”.

None of this is New Zealand Cricket’s fault. They are not India and cannot pick and choose what bits of the FTP they want to adhere to.

They were hurt too, by the fact they lost six weeks of cricket in Pakistan, mthough that would have been of the limited overs variety.

But surely NZC could have arranged more than one warm-up first-class match in Australia – oh, that’s right, New Zealand’s best players see warm-up matches as optional extras, to be playedonly if they can be squeezed in around IPL schedules (and we saw how well that worked in England).

Here’s another parallel they would do well to remember: New Zealand played just one first-class warm-up before the 2004 test against New South Wales in Sydney. Snap.

So their on-field preparation will be sketchy – all the more important to get their off-field prep spot-on.

According to multiple sources who have spoken to the Herald on Sunday, that has not happened.

Due largely to a massive and, in fairness, long overdue restructure of NZC, there has been a high-performance vacuum of sorts this winter.

What staff there are left have been pre-occupied with the Emerging Players and ‘A’ teams, leaving the full internationals pretty much to their own devices. Batting coach Mark O’Neill, who should, quite frankly, be the most over-worked man in New Zealand sport, said that last week’s clinics with the batsmen in Christchurch and the bowlers in Auckland was his first contact with the team since the tour to England.

Tim Southee, the most exciting cricketer produced within these shores for some years, had until last week had one session with a high-performance staffer.

Now these guys are pros, albeit in Southee’s case a very green one, and do not need their hands held, but this lack of hands-on coaching simply would not be happening in other top-tier cricket nations. England wouldn’t do it, South Africa wouldn’t do it, Australia wouldn’t do it.

Australia – New Zealand are playing them in less than two months.

Has anybody told you what happened the last time New Zealand toured there… ?

Reference :  http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/