Mittal, JGI join hands to support 'India's Quest for Medals'

Bangalore, Sep 15 (UNI) The Mittal Champions Trust of steel gaint Lakshmi Mittal has selected the Jain Academy for Sporting Excellence to provide training to top ten Indian archers, including six women.

Trust Spokesperson Manisha Malhotra and Jain Group of Institutes Chairman Chenraj Jain signed an agreement to this effect today.

Later talking to newspersons here, Ms Malhotra said an effort had been made to quench ''India's quest for medals'' by training archers with an eye on winning medals in the London Olympics in 2012.

''Jain institution was selected since it had good infrastructure for conducting the archery camp,'' she said.

She said the Trust would be spending Rs 40 crore to provide the chosen youngsters with highest quality training available in their sport. The youngsters would be identified in the age group of 17 and above, 13-17 yrs and 10-12 yrs.

The Trust had adopted six games -- Archery, Athletics, Boxing, Badminton, Squash and Yachting.

Ms Malhotra said the camp would continue till London Olympics and the archers would meanwhile participate in international tournaments like the forthcoming Asian Games, scheduled to be held in December in Doha, World Cup for Archery in Shanghai in March and the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

She said that of the ten archers selected for the training, four have been selected for the Beijing Olympics -- Mangal Singh, Reena Kumari, Renu and Punya Prabha. The others were Priyank, N Ravinder, Nayan Moninath, Chekrovoru Swuro, Sushma and Sumangala.

Ravinder and Sushma have been selected to represent the Indian team in the World Championship at Turkey, and Punya Prabha and Moninath picked for the Indian Junior Team.

She said the Trust, under the Chairmanship of Mr Lakshmi Mittal had been set up to identify, support and enhance the performance of talented young Indian sportsmen and women. The selected archers would practice under the guidance of Korean coach Mun Baek Woong.

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