BHUBANESWAR: Students of different institutions under SOA University will be competing in more than a dozen events over a period of 26 days for the SOA cup, which kicked off here on Wednesday.
Addressing the students, Resident Editor of The New Indian Express (Bhubaneswar) Siba Mohanty said sports needed a big push in the country where only 5.7 per cent of the 130 crore population were sports literate and about 57 lakh are associated with sports while about 10 million youngsters take up badminton in China every year.
“It is heartening to see that India is on the right path now and our recent achievements in the Olympics are a testimony to that. Odisha too is investing heavily in sports providing a boost to different games,” he said.
Mohanty appreciated the students for being passionate about sports and advised them to invest time on their favourite sport and pursue it as a career.
The events in which the students will take part include football (only boys), cricket, volleyball (only boys), basketball, lawn tennis, kho kho (only boys), throwball (only girls), table tennis, softball, chess and kabaddi.
A separate competition for the best physique for boys will be held as well. Kho kho has been introduced for the first time this year. A state-level table tennis player Abinash Tripathy took the oath on behalf of the participants.
SOA’s vice-chancellor Prof Bijay Kumar Sahu, pro-vice-chancellor Prof Pradipta Kumar Nanda, pro-vice-chancellor cum registrar Prof Bibhuti Bhushan Pradhan, dean (students’ welfare) Prof Jyoti Ranjan Das and sports officer Sunita Barma were present.