Sportsnasha awards for upcoming players in different sports were presented to Shubham Ambre( Table Tennis), Harshil Dani( Tennis), Rayner Fernandes(Football) Jahnvi More ( Carrom),Sakshi Rahate(Kabaddi) & Sarvesh Jadhav( Cricket)at a grand function held in Master Dinanath Mangeshkar Natyagruh, Vile Parle late evening on Sunday 9th October 2016. The occasion was the launch of exclusive sports website Sportsnasha.com .
Junior upcoming TT player Shubham Ambre being introduced to the audience
Sports Nasha is a dream project of Rajesh Deo, a Popular Professor ,Chhaya Pawar, national level kabaddi player and Shirish( Aju) Deshpande former bank manager and writer. Besides the award function, the organizers of this function had also arranged an interaction with all international level sportspersons from different games like Dhanraj Pillay ( Hockey) , Nandan Bal, Pradeep Gandhe, kamlesh Mehta, Sadanand Shetye, Arun Kedar, Amol Muzumdar and Sports Journalist Akshay Sawai.
All the former International sportspersons pose with hosts during release of Sportsnasha magazine.
Well known Sports Critic Dwarkanath Sanzgiri anchored this interactive session asking questions to these special guests about the progress of their game, which entertained the audience. While Pradeep Gandhe appreciated the progress of badminton players in Olympics, Nandan Bal also explained the progress of Indian tennis during the past few years. Arun kedar and Sadanand Shetye regretted the ignorance of media towards their sport, while Akshay Sawai explained the difficulties of media to give priority to sports with big event sponsorship.
All the former Champions answering questions posed by Sports Programme presenter Dwarkanath Sanzgiri
Kamlesh Mehta while replaying to the question, as to why the TT players were not showing progress in Olympics, stated that the efforts were on to groom the talent, but asked for time. He further explained that it was difficult for the players to qualify for Olympics, but two young players had qualified this time. He admitted that there were no good TT coaches/Gurus available in India and there was no coaching education programme for coaches of this game .
The real hero of this event was chief guest Dhanraj Pillay, who showed a fine gesture, by announcing additional cash award from his side amounting to Rs. 1.25 lakhs, which will be distributed among these six upcoming players. Shubham Ambre was the happiest person, as this promising 16 year old junior had walked in for this function, straight from Matunga Gymkhana Table tennis Tournament after winning double crown in Jr. Boys Singles and Youth Singles finals. Last month, he had won triple crown at the Chembur Gymkhana Tournament, winning the men’s singles too. This award should boost his confidence, as rightly pointed out by Dhanraj Pillay through his inspiring speech. A special award was given to Badminton player Milind Purnapatre for his efforts to promote the game of badminton at district level.
The show concluded with Dwarkanath Sanzgiri’s entertaining talk show ‘Listen Thy Cricketing Legends’.