Written by: Express News Service
2 min readSep 17, 2012 03:04 AM IST
First published on: Sep 17, 2012 at 03:04 AM IST
The Balewadi Sports Complex — where three of India’s six Olympic medallists trained — was in for praise from the Union Sports Minister Ajay Maken,who made a visit to the Gun for Glory shooting championship.
“I want to congratulate the state government for maintaining the Balewadi Sports Complex. It’s a big thing for Pune to produce three medallists. When the Commonwealth Games facilities came up,I thought all our athletes must train there. At that time,Mr Lapidus told me that we would be making a big mistake if the shooters didn’t train at Pune,” Maken said.
“Similarly,when the boxing federation wanted Mary Kom to train at Patiala,she was adamant that Pune would offer better facilities. Hockey coach Michael Nobbs also shifted from Bangalore to Pune as he thought the turf here was better.” Maken,however,had only one issue with the complex.
“This is a 150-acre facility,but no one was using it today apart from the shooting range. I think a minimum of 15,000 athletes should use the complex everyday,” he said. “We shouldn’t think our work is done when we create such facilities. We need to ensure that a large number of people use it and benefit from them.” By the 2020 Olympics,Maken said he expected Balewadi to produce at least 10 medallists. “It’s a realistic target,” the minister added.
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