SPORTS

Kayaking and canoeing officials meet Kalmadi
Our Sports Reporter

New Delhi, February 28
Senior vice-president of the Asian Canoe Confederation Wu Wen-Ta and chairman of Asian Canoe Slalom Committee M Narita along with their coach Liu Te-Chim called on Indian Olympic Association president Suresh Kalmadi to initiate launching of canoe slalom and canoe polo disciplines, which are part of the International Canoe Federation programmes.

Mr Wen-Ta, Mr Narita and Mr Te-Chim, accompanied by Indian Kayaking and Canoeing Association (IKCA) president Avinash C Kohli went around to check out the future Slalom Asian Centre for training on the Ganga and also for launching of the canoe polo for the first time for which the canoe polo boats have been donated by Mr Wu Wen-Ta.

The IKCA has been encouraging the Asian Canoe Confederation to use India as the Training Centre on the Ganga as the base for Asian countries, and in this connection president of the Asian Canoe Confederation Yoshio Sakurauchi and chairman of Slalom Committee S Narita of the Asian Canoe Confederation visited India in 1999 followed by the visit of Szanto Csaba, ICF co-ordinator for Asia, and they all approved of a site on the Ganga River above Rishikesh, just below Barhampur.

Slalom is an Olympic discipline, which has five medals. India have been holding Slalom competitions based on international rules, and have also included White Water Kayak Slalom Races in the Ganga Festival held every year.

Commissioner of Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan H Mairae through the Kendriya Vidyalaya Schools will be the first to launch the Canoe Polo in the country. Training is being given to children in the age group of 7 to 14 years. Mr Shyam Sunder of the Sports Authority of India has promised all assistance in importing the latest equipment and hiring of coaches to make India the Training Centre for Slalom for the Asean and SAF countries. The latest equipment will give an additional boost.

Arjun Atwal in top 200 of World Ranking
Our Sports Reporter

New Delhi, February 28
Arjun Atwal became only the second Indian player after Jeev Milkha Singh to break into the top-200 of the World Rankings, following his victory in the US $-900,000 Caltex Singapore Masters.

Atwal leaped 117 places from last week’s 303rd spot to a career-high 186th position. And with Jeev in 188th, the World Rankings featured two Indians in the top 200 for the first time since its inception.

Atwal won the Singapore Masters, a joint-sanctioned event for the Asian and European PGA Tours, by a stunning margin of five strokes at the Laguna National Golf Course, and became the first Indian and only the fourth Asian golfer to

Win an European Tour event

Only four other non-Japanese Asians feature in the top-200 of the World Rankings. Taiwan’s Lin King-Chi, the inaugural Asian PGA Order of Merit winner, is in the 103rd place while Thongchai Jaidee of Thailand is 133rd. Frankle Minoza of the Philippines is 173d and Korea’s Cho Kyung-ju, who plays on the US PGA Tour, is four rungs lower.

S Delhi, Oberoi move up in polo
Our Sports Reporter

New Delhi, February 28
South Delhi beat Army (Green) by ten goals to eight and Oberoi Blues beat McDowell’s Signature by ten goals to seven in the quarter-final matches of the Hindustan Times Trophy played at the Jaipur Polo ground in the Capital.

In an exciting match, Army (Green) bounced back from a 2-6 deficit to make it a close match in the end. Philip Elliot scored two goals for South Delhi in the first chukker while Col. Bhawani Singh scored a goal, when he converted a 30-yard penalty, for Army (Green), who started with a one-goal handicap.

Philip Eiliot scored another goal in the second chukker while a seven-goal player from Argentina, Hugo Barabuchi, scored two goals and Bala Mallya scored one goal in the third chukker for South Delhi. Maj. Atul Gupta and Lt Akhil Sirhoi scored on goal leach in the fourth chukker, while in the fifth chukker, Col. Bhawani Singh converted two penalties and Lt. Akhil scored one goal. At the end of the seventh chukker, South Delhi led by 9-7. Both the teams scored a goal each in the last chukker through Philip Elliot and Maj. Atul Gupta.

Oberoi Blues and McDowell’s contested the second match at a furious pace, as both the teams were 14-goal teams. Shamsheer Ali opened the account for McDowell’s and added one more goal in the same chukker while Vishal Singh opened the account for Oberoi Blues, scoring a goal in the second chukker.

Manupal Godara levelled the score but Shamsheer Ali converted a 30-yard penalty to put McDowell’s in the lead.

Manupal Godara and Shamsheer Ali scored a goal each in the third chukker and then Godara struck two goals for Oberoi in the fourth chukker. Godara scored two goals each in the fifth and sixth chukker while Shamsheer Ali and Basheer Ali scored for McDowell’s in the sixth chukker.

Friday’s fixtures: Off-Season vs Sahgal Stud-Equisport (10 am); Charlottes vs JPC (11 am)—Army Equestrian Centre polo ground.

5 teams for Division League
Our Sports Reporter

New Delhi, February 28
Five football teams of the country — Jorba Durga (Orissa), Uttar Pradesh Police, ASEB Sports Club (Assam), Boys Athletic Club of Sikkim and DSA League runners-up Hindustan Club — will participate in the Cluster-I matches of the second Division National Football League, to be held at the Ambedkar Stadium in the Capital from March 2 to 11.1.

The top team of the Cluster-I phase league will qualify for the second phase league, to be held from March 18 at the Ambedkar Stadium. Defending DSA League champions SAIL-Indian Nationals Club along with Border Security Force (Punjab) have been directly seeded into the second phase.

The matches of other clusters will be held at Kannur (Kerala), Tamilnadu, Chandigarh, Mandi (Himachal Pradesh) and Meghalaya simultaneously.

The final phase of the league will be held in Pondicherry in April.

Jorba Durga (Orissa) will take on Boys Athletic Club of Sikkim in the inaugural match of the second Division National League on March 2 at 1.30 pm, while Hindustan Club will take on ASEB Sports Club, Assam at 3.30 pm.

DSA joint secretary N K Bhatia said the matches will be held under gates and the tickets will be priced at Rs 5 each. The spectators will be given sports T shirts sponsored by Shiv Naresh, a leading sports goods manufacturing company, on the basis of lucky draw to be taken out everyday.

The DSA Senior Division League on its final leg, and

the Second Division National Football League will keep alive the soccer activity for a few more days before the Ambedkar Stadium gets some rest.

Two seeds left in the fray in ITF Open
Our Sports Reporter

New Delhi, February 28
Only fifth seeded Maria Kindratieva of Russia and fourth-seeded Young-Jai Choi of Korea were left in the fray as the semi-final line-up in the Syndicate Bank-ITF Women’s Open Tennis was completed at the Delhi Lawn Tennis Association deco turf courts in the Capital on Thursday.

In the quarter-final matches, Shuai Peng of China beat Sybillie Bammer of Australia 6-2, 6-0 while Young-Ja Choi beat Rushmi Chakravarthi of India 6-3, 7-6 (7-4). Rushmi was India’s last hope, and she did put up a good fight, but the seeded Korean girl was far too good for Rushmi to upset her apple cart.

In other matches, Maria beat Vesenjak Urska of Slovakia 6-4, 6-0 while Eva Birnerova of Czech beat compatriot Dominika Luzorovo 6-2, 6-1 in the other match. Indian hopes vanished in doubles too as in the semi-finals top-seeded Birnerova/Hlavackova beat Stephens/Manisha Malhotra 6-1, 6-3 while the second-seeded Kim/Choi outgunned Rushmi/Sai Jayalakshmi 4-6,6-3,6-0.

R R Gymkhana enter last eight

New Delhi, February 28
Rohtak Road Gymkhana beat Chand Khanna Club by 61 runs to enter the quarter-final of the second Rajdhani Sports Trophy Cricket Tournament at the Mohan Meakin ground.

Chand Khanna Club: 121 all out in 31.2 overs (Sunil Joshi 34, Rajeev Uniyal 22, Raja Gurmeet Singh 3/07, Vivek Khurana 2/17). OC

5,000 issued I-T notices in Sonepat 
Our Correspondent

Sonepat, February 28
The Income Tax Department has issued notices to more than 5,000 persons, who have been covered under the ‘one-by-six’ scheme, introduced by the Central Government for increasing the number of income tax payees in the district. Mr Ashok Kumar Aneja, Income Tax Commissioner, Rohtak Division, stated this while addressing a press conference here on Wednesday evening. Mr J. R. Grover, Assistant Income-Tax Commissioner, and Mr Devinder Singh Rathi, Income

Tax Officer, were also present on the occasion. Mr Aneja said that the persons covered under the scheme would have to file their returns by the end of March 31. Otherwise, they would have to pay a penalty of Rs 5,000. He said that Sonepat city, besides the towns of Ganaur, Kharkhauda and Gohana in the district, had been covered under the scheme.

Similarly, the towns of Sampla, Kalanaur and Meham had been included in the Sonepat range of the department and hence, the residents of these towns would have to file their returns by the stipulated period. He disclosed that the holders of telephones, mobile telephones, credit cards and four-wheelers would come under the purview of the income tax. Similarly, the people having a membership of clubs, or owning houses in an area of 2,000 yards or commercial buildings in an area of 300 yards also need to file the returns.

He said that the persons who had toured the foreign countries were also covered under the scheme. According to the Commissioner, the senior citizens, who had telephones or residential houses, had been exempted from filing their returns. However, they would be covered under four other categories. He disclosed that 2,213 persons had so far filed their returns with the department so far. Over 4,000 new assesses had been included in the list of the department.