CHENNAI: ALL roads on Friday evening will lead to the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium as Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be the chief guest at the opening ceremony of the 6th Khelo India Youth Games.
The Nehru stadium, the main venue, wore a festive look with athletes preparing in earnest for the 13-day event. The KIYG is being held in south for the first time. Chennai, Madurai, Tiruchirapalli and Coimbatore are the four cities hosting the event. Over 5600 athletes will take part in this edition spread across 15 venues with 26 sporting disciplines, over 275 competitive events and one demo sport. TN will be the first state in last three editions to host all the sports disciplines.
‘Veera Mangai’ the mascot TN has designed its mascot based on freedom fighter Rani Velu Nachiyar. Rani Velu Nachiyar was the first Indian queen to go to war against the East India Company.
The 5th edition was held at Bhopal where Maharashtra topped the medals tally with 161 medals (including 56 gold), followed by Haryana and Madhya Pradesh. Tamil Nadu’s best-ever performance came in the second edition in Pune where they finished fifth with a total of 88 medals. J Mercy Regina, chef-de-mission of the Tamil Nadu contingent, is confident that the hosts athletes will bag about 100 medals and perhaps bag a overall bronze medal. ‘’The state government has been investing heavily in identifying and nurturing talent at the grassroots level and the contingent shows how much progress we have made. With the WBTTS scheme, 27 sports hostels have been established,” said Regina and pointed out that all sports disciplines have a sizeable number of players training at the sports hostels.