National athletics championship at Bambolim planned
Jovito Lopes
PANJIM: Goa will have two state-of-the-art athletic tracks to international standards at Bambolim and Pedem (Mapusa), which will be ready and tested in October, declared Goa Athletic Association (GAA) secretary Paresh Kamat, here, Tuesday.
“Imagine for the last 50 years, Goa did not have a single athletic track as per the accepted norms, with athletes being the worst sufferers, forced to run on muddy, undulating surfaces. All that will be a thing of the past now. Come October, and there will not be just one but two, IAAF (International Association of Athletics Fedarations) approved tracks to international specifications,” disclosed Paresh.
“We had submitted the proposal for both tracks to Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar and also suggested that these should be at Bambolim and Pedem. He not only accepted these, but went ahead at break-neck speed to invite the experts and get the plans ready and implemented. It was virtually a 100m sprint race for Parrikar, who is also personally monitoring the progress of the works so that the infrastructure is ready much ahead of 3rd Lusofonia Games to be held in November,” explained the GAA official.
“All these years people only talked about tartan track at Pedem, even when the Central Government had allotted one to Goa. But that remained on paper. Come June, and both tracks will be ready. The one at Pedem needs only the third layer since the work on two layers is over and it will take just one week more for laying the third layer. Work on laying the first layer at Bambolim track will start tomorrow and it will take 20 days for the other two layers to be laid. The entire work on the tracks should be ready before monsoons, and the 5-member GAA team that inspected the works today at both venues along with consultant engineer Kulkarni of Sashi Prabhu & Co and the others from Sports Infratech of New Delhi, is confident that the deadlines will be met, and that there will be no comprise on quality and overall standards,” elaborated Paresh.
“Sports Infratech has the necessary expertise in building tracks in India and the two tracks will be as per the IAAF specifications with a minimum guarantee of seven years. They have built tracks in New Delhi and Bhopal where they also built an astro-turf field for hockey. The works are also being monitored by the Athletic Federation of India (AFI) and the first trial will take place early October when Goa will have the privilege of hosting the first-ever National Athletic Championship in Goa. It will have 33 events and it will be used as a dry run for Lusofonia Games,” disclosed Paresh.
Paresh stated that both tracks will have nine-lane 400m tracks each and 10 straight lanes each for 100m sprint. The warm-up track track at Bambolim will have six straight lanes. The biggest beneficiaries will be Goan boys and girls, both at school and college levels, men and women athletes, veteran athletes as well as the GAA which all this time found it pretty difficult to organize State meets due to lack of proper infrastructure. It will be our responsibility to ensure that the facilities are utilized properly, round the year, so that it doesn’t become a white elephant. All electronic equipment that will be needed has already been identified by our vice-president Anita Rodrigues with the help of SAG and under the direction of SAG’s Executive Director Sandip Jacques and Lusofonia Games CEO and Sports Secretary Keshav Chandra, and we are just looking forward for the day when the tracks will be inaugurated. That will be another golden day in Goa’s sports history. That’s the day when Goa will have the necessary infrastructure that is expected to propel our budding athletes to greater heights and consequently medals and trophies in the future,” summed up Paresh.
The other members of the GAA team were Anagha Warlikar, Gurudas Sawant (joint secretary), Sushant Naik and Yuvraj Volvoikar, members.
