The last week in Pune has seen sports aficionados from the city flock to the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex at Balewadi, Pune to witness the future of Indian sports.
Aman Furgoh
The biggest youth sports initiative by the Government of India, Khelo India Youth Games made sure that the sprawling state-of-the-art sports complex was full to the brim with spectators, coaches, tournament officials and almost 10,000 athletes from all over India competing for 209 Gold Medals in 16 sports disciplines.
Little wonder that Pune, being the birth place of badminton, the sport generated one of the biggest spectator draws.
Anannya and Aarya
The Badminton Under 21 boys summit clash between higher ranked BM Rahul Bharadwaj of Karnataka and local favorite Aman Sanjay Farogh of Thane, lived up to the expectations and delighted the crowd. Aman had beaten India No. 1 Priyanshu Rajawat of Chattisgarh in the semi final and was brimming with confidence.
The first game saw the talented and steady right hander from Karnataka hold lead for three quarters of the game, with Aman showing flashes of brilliance but also giving away easy points. The Thane youngster who trains at the Thane Academy under Coach Shrikant Vad came good in the later stages of the game imparting thunderous smashes on both sides of the court. Aman drew level at 16 and took the game convincingly at 21-17.
Malvika (Nagpur)
The second game had Aman continuing in the same vein with Rahul playing catch up. Some unforced errors at crucial stages and the game was level at 20 all. Aman managed to hold his nerve and completed a straight sets victory, the scoreline reading 21-17, 23-21 leading to a Saurav Gangulish celebration from the Thane boy.
The Girls U21 was fought between last years’ finalists, Malvika Bansod of Maharashtra and top seed Akarshi Kashyap of Chattisgarh. The Kiran Makode trained lass from Nagpur, could not retain her title as she seemed a little rusty compared to the girl from Rajnandgaon, who now trains at the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy in Bangalore.
Akarshi ran away with the first game 21-11 and was leading 9-1 in the second when Malvika started fighting back. She brought down the deficit to just 2 points at 14-16 but the steady Akarshi held her nerves to win 21-16 and avenge her loss last year to the Nagpur lass.
Maharashtra had joy and gold in the Girls U-17 Doubles too with Pune’s Nikhil Kanetkar Badminton Academy trainee Aarya Deshpande and PDMBA’s Ananya Phadke outclassing Rajasthan’s Sakshi Asrani and Anushka Mehta 21-16, 21-13 in just 29 minutes. Thus courting of two golds and one silver in the Badminton discipline.
A jubilant Maharashtra Badminton Association president Arun Lakhani said “We are proud of the achievements of our young, upcoming players. Our younger players are performing consistently at the national level, and we are committed to support them for many more successes in the future. We also expect Maharashtra players to perform well in the forthcoming 74th Senior National Championship in Guwahati”.
A staggering 15 gold medals for hosts Maharashtra on Sunday in the Khelo India Youth Games saw them maintain their supremacy at the top and become the first state to cross the 150 medal mark with their 56 gold medals being added to by an impressive 44 silver and 56 bronze medals.