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Saturday,
August 9, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Pillay is skipper for Champions Trophy Champions Trophy Federation Cup final today Top priority to
fitness: Wright
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Indian grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand playing against Moldavian Viktor Bologan in the Sparkassen chess tournament in Dortmund on Thursday. — PTI photo Atlanta’s Olympic legacy
is decaying fast
SAI suspends eight
weightlifting coaches Beckham enters ladies’ toilet Father ‘drugs’ son’s opponents
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Pillay is skipper for Champions Trophy New Delhi, August 8 Deedar Singh made it to the side in place of an indisposed Sandeep Michael, who was a member of the team that won its last title in Hamburg in June, IHF sources told PTI here today. Michael was rested after he contacted jaundice during the team's fitness camp in Dagshai in Himachal Pradesh last month. Former captain Mukesh Kumar, who was left out after making a comeback to the side for the twin-leg tournament in Australia, also failed to win his place back for the prestigious tournament. The Indian team led by Dhanraj Pillay will leave for Holland on August 11. They will take on the defending champions and hosts Holland in their opening match of the six-nation tournament on August 16. Besides India and Holland, Pakistan, Australia, Germany and Argentina are the other teams in the fray. Team:
Dhanraj Pillay, Devesh Chauhan, Kamaldeep Singh, Dilip Tirkey, Kanwalpreet Singh, Jugraj Singh, Ignace Tirkey, Viren Rasquinha, Vikram Pillay, Bimal Lakra, V.S. Vinay, Baljit Singh Saini, Gagan Ajit Singh, Prabhjot Singh, Tejbir Singh, Deepak Thakur, Deedar Singh, Baljit Singh Dhillon. Chief Coach: Rajinder Singh Coach: Baldev Singh Goalkeeping Coach:
A.B. Subbaiah Physical Trainer: Sampath Kumar. Meanwhile, Dr Vece Paes who briefed the team members on fitness, said it was easier for any sportsman to adjust from a hot and humid weather to a cold one than the other way round. "It will be summer in Amstelveen and the temperature will be around 25-30 degrees centigrade which will be ideal for the team," he pointed out. The hockey team will leave for the prestigious six-nation tournament on August 11. India will open their campaign against the hosts Netherlands on the opening day and take on Germany (Aug 17), Australia (Aug 19), Argentina (Aug 20) and arch rivals Pakistan (Aug 22) in their subsequent matches. —
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Vece Paes interacts with hockey team New Delhi, August 8 After a commando-style high-altitude training camp in Dagshai in Himachal Pradesh and a more rigorous ongoing session in Lucknow, captain Dhanraj Pillay and his men left their hockey sticks behind for a different kind of training on Wednesday. The players had a lengthy session with fitness expert Dr Vece Paes who briefed them on a vital aspect — how to remain fit and fresh for the entire duration of the game. "It was a very good interaction with the players. Coach Rajinder Singh wanted me to speak to the boys before they left for the tournament. I just spoke to them on some aspects of fitness", Paes told PTI over phone from Kolkata. Paes, a former international hockey player himself, mainly dwelt on "energetics and recovery in hockey" keeping in mind India's tendency to concede goals in the dying stages of the match. Paes said his visit to Lucknow was part of a 'Peak Performance Programme' targeted to enhance the players' general fitness. "The players looked quite fit and confident after their recent back-to-back victories. My talk focussed on some specific areas like how to replenish the energy, diet and special preparations on match days and non-match days", he explained.—
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Champions Trophy New Delhi, August 8 “India’s progress to the final will largely depend on how we fare in our first two matches — against Holland and Germany. Germany’s second team, we hope, will not be as formidable as the senior side,” Indian Hockey Federation sources told PTI here today. “This could benefit India to some extent since we are trying to come up with our best ever performance in the competition,” the sources said. Germany, who finished second behind Holland in the last edition of the meet in Cologne, decided against fielding their main team in the six-nation championship as they are more keen to play the European Nations Cup in Spain next month which is the qualifying tournament for the Athens Olympics. Germany coach Bernhard Peters said that it would be “foolish to play in both the tournaments with same team” since both are being held back-to-back. “We may not make it to next year’s Champions Trophy, but it would be tragic if we did not qualify for the Olympics,” media reports quoted Peters as saying. India, who are yet to win the Champions Trophy, came up with their best performance in 1982 in Amsterdam where they finished third. Absence of Germany’s main team in the Champions Trophy could help India break the jinx since the world champions have turned out to be the biggest hurdle in the tournament. —
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Federation Cup final today Kolkata, August 8 The Mumbai giants have had a phenomenal run in the Federation Cup and brushed aside NFL sides like Tollygunge Agragami, Air-India and Vasco SC in their stride with James Singh and Raphael Akakpo excelling with every match. However, Mahindra’s British coach David Booth is not taking any chances. ‘’We have to play cautiously, because Mohammedan Sporting is also a on a comeback trail. They have some tremendous players and a lot of guts and fighting spirit.’’ He brushed aside the crowd factor saying, ‘’We will play against Mohammedan Sporting, not their fans.’’ The Briton sounded extremely confident about his team’s chances. He took over the team some seven weeks ago and looked satisfied with the way the boys have shaped up. ‘’They are working hard and are gelling well as a unit. I am confident they will deliver tomorrow,’’ he said after a workout with the boys today. He, however, sounded a wee bit worried about Peter Siddiqui and Odartey Lawson, both of whom were nursing injuries. ‘’I think they will be ready for the derby game tomorrow,’’ he said. But if one has to go by what Mohammedan Sporting’s technical director P.K. Banerjee said, then the half line of Jules Alberto, Shanmugam Venkatesh, James Singh and Khalid Jameel is one of the best in the country and with Raphael Akakpo and Avishek Yadav excelling as strikers, Mahindra will have a lot to think about. For Mohammedan Sporting its a prestige battle. They have come back to the big league after an ignominous existence for the last few years and had a hand on this trophy 14 years ago. So they will give their best. Club coach Mohammed Habib, however, has his hands full. He will not get two of his best players in Khalid Siddiqi and Habib Adekunle both of who have two yellow cards. So he plans to replace them with Satish Bharti and Manab Deb stating that he has a lot of faith in them. His goalie Refeek is nursing an injury. Habib, after a practice told here, ‘’We will play to our potential and strength. While we are not going for any special man marking, each player will have to take care of his position and not allow the opponent to filter through.’’ —
UNI |
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FIFA slaps huge fine
on Bagan Kolkata, August 8 The news has come at the worst time, as the club was desperately looking for a foreign recruit to lend some stability to the disoriented midfield. The letter from FIFA came even before the sport's highest governing body's decision to punish the club in Abdul Latif Seriki's case had completely dissolved. Club secretary Anjan Mitra told UNI, ''We had suspended George Ekke and Isa Musa for breaking the club discipline and provoking the players not to play for the club. Copies of the letter had been forwarded to IFA, AIFF and FIFA." ''So we have a reason for stopping their payments. It's not as if we did not want to pay them,'' he said. ''However, it's the special officers who are in charge of the club's footballing affairs. They will now think of how to go about it.” —
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Top priority to
fitness: Wright Bangalore, August 8 Talking to newspersons here, he defended the decision to have 36 probables for the camp, scheduled to begin here on August 14. He said the camp would give an opportunity to more players and would also enable the selectors to gauge their talent. Fast bowlers would be given preference compared to spinners, he said, adding that there was a need for a change in the perception that India depended heavily on spinners on home tracks. On Javagal Srinath expressing his inability to attend the camp due to a knee problem, Wright said he was a “professional and experienced” player. Last year he did well, including in the World Cup. “I will have a chat with him.” Wright was full of praise for India’s performance last year and said the team did well in the World Cup, though it failed in the final. However, there was need for more competition for the players to further improve their performance, especially against Pakistan. Asked about Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh and Mohammed Kaif who have also sought exemption from the camp in view of their engagement in the English county season, he said, “It is good they are gaining rich experience. What is important is that they should perform well.” Asked about non-inclusion of opener Sadagopan Ramesh, Wright said he had to take it in a sportive manner. A second camp will subsequently be held for the selected players in the city. —
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Anand draws with Kramnik
Dortmund, August 8 Tournament leader Grandmaster Viktor Bologan of Moldova settled for an early truce with Linares Champion Peter Leko of Hungary and maintained his full point lead over Kramnik and Anand. With just two more rounds remaining in the category-18 tournament, being played under double round-robin basis, Bologan is a full point clear 5 of his nearest rivals Anand and Kramnik. Anand opened with the queen’s gambit that came as a major surprise for Kramnik. The Russian had to see more surprises in the game as Anand employed a variation which is quite unusual in top level games. Keeping his king in the centre, Anand embarked on his counterplay bid on the queen side and Kramnik could not really make a match of it. After just 21 moves the draw was agreed to when only two rooks and a knight remained on board. Anand and Kramnik are on four points apiece and were engrossed in a wild game arising out of a queen’s gambit game. In the previous round, Anand beat Bologan with a superb rook sacrifice and the Moldovan decided to play it safe with white pieces against Leko to move to unassailable 5.5 points after his 8 games in the event. Bologan might have a tough call on hand in the remaining rounds when he is slated to play Grandmaster Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan and Kramnik in the last two rounds. Radjabov was also fighting it hard against GM Arkadi Naiditsch of Germany at the time of going to Press. The German hope has a psychological edge against his more famous rival after a finely crafted victory in their earlier encounter. That win has so far been the only one for Naiditsch while Leko is the only one without a victory here. —
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Atlanta’s Olympic legacy is decaying fast Atlanta, August 8 “Wolf Creek Shooting Complex,” a marker reads. “Venue for the sport of shooting in the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games.” The place is all locked up. The memories are fading. A few bronze plaques are about the only reminders of that summer seven years ago. Wolf Creek is symbolic of the decaying legacy from the Atlanta Olympics. Some venues closed. Others struggled to find their place once the torch was extinguished. Billy Payne, the man who ran the games, had not even heard that Fulton County was shutting down the world-class shooting range because of its drain on the budget. “We only built permanent structures where we thought there was a permanent use,” Payne said. “We don’t get it right all the time. In that case, we didn’t.” The two most prominent symbols from the Atlanta Games were the main stadium and Centennial Olympic Park. In the aftermath of 1996, both took on roles that had little to do with fostering the development of Olympic sports. The 85,000-seat stadium — where Muhammad Ali lit the torch, Carl Lewis leaped to his final medal and Michael Johnson ran into the record books on golden shoes — was converted into a 50,000-seat baseball park as soon as the Olympians left town. Turner Field is home now of Baseball’s Atlanta Braves, with scant evidence that the Olympics were ever held there. After the games, the cauldron was disconnected from the renovated stadium and moved to the far edge of a parking lot. “It’s not interfering with baseball and baseball is not interfering with it,” Braves president Stan Kasten said. “Remember, this is a baseball venue. That’s what it was designed for.” That remains a thorn in the side of the IOC. In their view, Olympic money was used to build a stadium named in honor of Ted Turner, who founded his own Olympic-style competition, the Goodwill Games. Also, Major League Baseball has a rocky relationship with the IOC, refusing to alter its schedule so the top pros can participate. “Not only was that stadium not used afterward for athletics, it was a gift to a corporation whose leader said his games were more important than the Olympics,” said Anita DeFrantz, an American member of the International Olympic Committee. “It’s a real hard thing to accept that money raised by the Olympic movement built this thing.” Kasten scoffed at the IOC objections. “Olympic money built 11 vacant stadiums in South Korea. Is that better?” he said. “We were able to put this here without a dollar of taxpayer money. I’m proud of that.” Centennial Olympic Park, the main gathering spot in 1996, is dotted with plaques and monuments in remembrance of the games. But, in true Atlanta fashion, it’s more a tool for development than a promotion of sport. Condos and hotels have sprung up around the park. At the north end, a new aquarium and Coca-Cola museum are under construction. There was once talk about building some sort of Olympic museum at the park. But the mementos and archives from the games are boxed up at the Atlanta History Center, which is trying to raise money for a permanent exhibit some 16 kilometers away. “It’s not just about that moment in the summer of 1996,” said Dan Rooney, the museum’s curator of urban history. “It’s about the bigger lessons learned from the world coming together. It’s about the physical change to the city, what the legacy of the Olympics has meant.” All around town, there are reminders that the Olympics didn’t carry a whole lot of staying power. The Stone Mountain Tennis Center is home to the state high school championships and some local tournaments, but that’s about it. The Georgia International Horse Park in Conyers can’t rely on equestrian events to make ends meet, so car shows, carnivals and Civil War re-enactments are on the schedule. —
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SAI suspends eight
weightlifting coaches Patiala, August 8 The names of four SAI athletic coaches, who have also been suspended on dope-related charges, are A.M Verghese (Trichur), Ranga Rao and Chiranjeevi (Andhra Pradesh) and Jugraj Singh of the Patiala-based Centre of Excellence. Apart from the eight SAI coaches, three other weightlifting coaches, who are not employees of the SAI, are also under the scanner. They are Thangamani and Tamil Selvan of the Railway Sports Promotion Board (RSPB) and Gurnam Singh of Punjab Police. Prominent among the SAI weightlifting coaches on whom charges of `abetment to doping' have been slapped are Dronacharya awardee Hansa Sharma of the Lucknow-based Centre of Excellence and K. Amarnath of Andhra Pradesh. Sharma was the chief coach of the women's squad which took part in the 1999 Athens world championship and also the personal coach of tainted lifter Shelja Pujari . Other weightlifting coaches who have been suspended are Harbir Singh Sandhu (Punjab), S.C Goel (Delhi), P. Ramu (Pondicherry), Kunj Kishore (Manipur) and G.P Sharma (Lucknow). Several lifters who had tested positive during the Chennai junior national championship were Sandhu's trainees while Goel was Kunjarani Devi's coach when she tested positivein the 2001 senior Asian meet in South Korea. Mani Lal, a scientific officer employed with the SAI southern centre at Bangalore, was earlier placed under suspension. He had accompanied Satish Rai and Krishnan Madasamy to the Manchester Commonwealth Games. Both Madasamy and Satish Rai had tested positive at Manchester. |
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Beckham enters ladies’ toilet Hong Kong, August 8 The 28-year-old Real Madrid star walked into the women’s toilet at the
Dragon-i nightclub in Hong Kong on Wednesday night, hours after arriving in the city ahead of an exhibition match today. Night club attendee Tinnie Chow, who was in the toilet at the time, wrote in Friday’s South China Morning Post: “Three of us were standing in line for the loo when the door swung open and in walked David Beckham and two bodyguards. “As the guards ushered him into the first available stall, we quickly pointed out he was walking into the women’s washroom.” “Beckham’s jaw dropped and he said he didn’t know.” —
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Father ‘drugs’ son’s opponents Paris, August 8 One player died in a car wreck after apparently falling asleep while driving, and another was hospitalised for two days, investigators say the police is trying to determine whether there were other victims. Mr Chirstophe Fauviau, 43, a retired soldier from Tercis-les-Bains in southwestern France, was arrested last Saturday and placed under judicial investigation to determine whether he should be formally charged with unintentionally causing a death by administering toxic substances. He is suspected of giving the anti-anxiety drug temesta, which can cause drowsiness, to several opponents of his son, Maxime. —
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New Delhi, August 8
