VIJAYAWADA: Vennam Jyothi Surekha, who made the State proud by winning the silver medal as part of Indian women’s compound archery team at the 18th Asian Games being held at Jakarta, Indonesia, was felicitated by the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) in a ceremony held at Tummalapalli Kalakshetram on Friday. The civic body announced a cash prize of rupees five lakh for the silver medalist, who also is an Arjuna awardee.
Speaking on the occasion Surekha fondly remembered the days when she did begin to practise at the Indira Gandhi Municipal Stadium at the tender age of 11. She, however, expressed her unhappiness about the condition of the stadium, which got more affected by the recent rains and hoped that the government would undertake repair works in the multi-purpose stadium and make it ready for the players who, have the potential to bring pride to the country. For the record, TNIE carried a report on August 24 on how recent rains had further damaged the stadium.
When asked about the condition of the stadium, Vijayawada Mayor Koneru Sreedhar, who in course of the ceremony had announced that a ‘place’ would be named after Jyothi Surekha, said, “We are going to repair the stadium and it will be for the VMC school children to use. Nobody else will use it. Sports Authority of Andhra Pradesh (SAAP) officials will not be allowed to use the stadium for training anymore”.
“We are going to promote sports among the children of VMC schools... Though there are only 15 physical education teachers for the 28 VMC schools, we are going to appoint more PETs soon as the DSE results are also out,” said Sreedhar.
However, when Ankamma Chowdary, SAAP Chairman, was asked to react to the comment made by the city mayor in public, he refused to give a statement in public, but told this reporter in private that anyone could play in the stadium. “The stadium can be used by the VMC school children and players trained by SAAP as well. The stadium belongs to all. Anyone can play there,” he said.
Speaking on the occasion, J Nivas, VMC commissioner, said, “I am glad that Surekha has achieved this today. There are players, who have gone through severe hardship and are here. Surekha is one among those, as she had been practising for 16 hours a day. ”
Surekha thanked her stars for the praise showered on her and further told TNIE that it was just ‘bad luck’ that the women’s team had lost. She said she was happy not to have lost a single point in the final match against South Korea. However, the ceremony had its own share of ‘controversy’. Apart from the one ‘created’ by the mayor’s statement, the delayed start of the felicitation ceremony however, took some cheer out, not only of the school children, who formed the bulk of the audience present, but also of the Surekha’s family, who seemed to harbour some anguish over the ‘not-so-grand’ reception given to the archer when she landed in the airport.
The ceremony that was scheduled to begin at 11 am, began at around 1 pm, following the mayor’s arrival.
Mayor Sreedhar however, apologised to both Surekha and her father for the two-hour delay and attributed it to the ‘ill-timed’ visit of officials, who arrived from Chandigarh.
Sports department sources however, acknowledged that officially no one could ‘justify’ the delay as the ceremony should have been pre-scheduled carefully so that a ‘proper welcome’ could have been accorded to Surekha in a ‘befitting ceremony’.
Medals: Now and then
City-based international archer Vennam Jyothi Surekha is one of the three members of the team, comprising Muskan Kirar and Madhumita Kumari
The trio lost by 228-231 points to South Korea in the finals and bagged the first ever silver medal in compound archery category
In 2014 Asian Games, the women’s compound archery team had settled for a bronze after beating Iran in the third place play-off.