Olympian gold medalist Bindra opens Dasara sports meet

Mysore, Oct 4(UNI) The Dasara festival with a galaxy of artistes performances was added colour with the opening of the three-day sports meet in the City of Palaces here today.

In a colourfull function organised by the state youth services and sports at Chamundivihar sports staidum which was declared opened by India's first ever individual Olympic Gold Medalist Abhinav Bindra.

The other medalist at the Beijing games Boxer Vijendra Singh will be theCchief guest. Wrestler Sushil Kumar was not available citing health reasons.

Over 2500 sports persons are taking part in the meet which would be conducted in 24 events at different events in the city including the star attraction of half marathon which will be run from the Heritage town of Srirangpatana to Mysore tomorrow.

A novel feature of this year's game would be the corss-country race for veterans in the men's category.

On the concluding day of the meet on Monday four Mysoreans- Chess player Thej Kumar and Girish Koushik, Tennis player Poojashree Venkatesh and Powerlifter Vasudha will be honoured along with the Karnataka athletes who represented the country in the Beijing games.

Speaking on the occasion Mr Bindra expressed his gratitude for the invitation and asked all the sports persons to have discipline and devotion to reach the goal.

He also emphasised the need of both education and sports to achive any goal in life.

Vijendra Singh, the winner of Bronze medal (boxing) said felt very elated having won the bronze for the country.

UNI BSP SIV TS1647