City may host Taekwondo national championship

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of the Dasara Taekwondo contest for the sub juniors and junior category at Nithyananda hall here, he said the Karnataka Association was keen to host the National championship, while a majority of National champions and players had inquired about playing in the heritage city. “The subject will be discussed at the meeting of the Taekwondo Federation of India scheduled towards the end of month.

We are fully prepared to host the tournament in Mysore as the city is only second to Bangalore to develop as a centre for sports and having good infrastructure for such events,” he told media persons.

He said Karnataka was front runner among the States in the Taekwondo ranking. There are more than 1000 active Taekwondo players in the State, he revealed.

Asian Games

Praveen Kumar said the Country had a good chance of bagging medals in Taekwondo in the Asian Games. Ten of the India’s best players are being given training in Kyungi University in Seoul (South Korea), which is the best training school for this martial art in the World. “The Union Government has sponsored about 17 lakh for three month training of six men and four women Taekwondo players. They will arrive in India on Oct 31 and would leave to China for the Asian Games on Nov 13. A coach will also be hired from Seoul to train these players in India before departure,” he said.

The players on training in Seoul are Surendra Bhandari (Assam), Sunil Kumar (Haryana), P Anand (Goa), Chandan Lakra (Goa), Sandeep Kundu (Punjab), Jaswant(Madhya Pradesh), Lathika Bhandari, Sristi Singh, Lili Balachary, SriLakshmi (Karnataka). Indian Coach Gautham Singh Virdi has accompanied the players.