GAIL, the well-known Indian PSU in field of Natural Gas Production
and distribution has been making new business highs since its advent in 1984. As
a corporate it has been doing different CSR activities and has now embarked
into a new domain of promoting Young athletes from grassroots level. GAIL has done
partnership with National Yuva Cooperative Society for this initiative called “GAIL
Indian Speedster” whose goal is to find young athletes across length and
breadth of India who are extremely talented and can be potential great hopes
for India in future Olympics. National Yuva Cooperative Society has tied up
with Anglian Medal Hunt Company as its Technical Partner for The GAIL Indian
Speedstar project
The reason to launch this program is to identify, select and
nurture the hidden talent in athletes. The targeted age group is 11 - 17 years
in 100m, 200m and 800m track events across. The Project has goals to create a
pool of athletes with knack which will possibly bring honor for India in track
events at the highest echelon of sporting events - the Olympics 2020/2024. A
panel of eminent sportspersons like P.T Usha, Rachita Mistry, Anuradha Biswal
and Kavita Raut have been appointed in the selection committee to support
selections and guide coaching camps. As members of the selection committee
their role would include creating the selection criteria or the GAIL-Indian
Speedstar program, and developing the training plan and module for the selected
athletes at the National Level. Dr Ashutosh Karnatak, Director (Projects) GAIL
(India) Ltd, Rajesh Pande, President, National Yuva Cooperative Society Ltd and
Maneesh Bahuguna- CEO, Anglian Medal Hunt Company were also present during launch
of the project in New Delhi.
District trials were conducted under the watchful eyes of
coaches and selectors, appointed by the selection committee. The selection of
the athletes was based on talent identification and selection criteria set by
the selection committee. Initiatory, in its first year, earlier this year with
initial trials conducted at 55 districts across 10 states in which more than
25,000 children participated out of which 850 children made it to the State
level.
The first State level camp and trial was organized on
27-28th of February in SawaiMaan Singh Stadium, Jaipur where 60 boys and girls
participated out of which 4 have qualified for the next level. The state trials
were held in Odisha (14 Selection), Delhi (28
Selection), Kerala (28 Selection) and Jharkhand (4 Selection) followed by
Maharashtra and Gujarat in the last week of April. The shortlisted
children from the State trials will then participate in the National camp and
selection which is scheduled to be held in May 2016 at Jawaharlal Nehru
Stadium, New Delhi. Shortlisted athletes from state trials will attend an
intensive national level camp. At the conclusion of the coaching camp, final
trials will be held. Winners will be selected based on the qualification
criteria and their potential. The winners will be given extensive training
throughout the year. The top 9 athletes will then be provided with a world
class coaching for over a period of 5 years with an ultimate objective of one
of these athletes to represent India at the Olympics.
Follow all the activities related to GAIL Indian Speedstar at its Facebook page and on Twitter .