Seven athletes awarded scholarship

Kick-starting the preparation for the Summer Olympic Games to be held in Beijing next year, the Indian Olympic Association...

Kick-starting the preparation for the Summer Olympic Games to be held in Beijing next year, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) on Thursday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with consumer durable giants Samsung.

Under the agreement, Samsung has offered scholarship to seven top sportspersons to prepare for the 2008 Olympics. The scholarship will be for a period of one year beginning from October this year, and continue till September 2008.

And India’s prowess in shooting is well reflected in the list of the recipients for the prestigious fellowship with the name—Olympic Ratna. India’s brand ambassadors for Samsung will be Manavjit Singh Sandhu, Abhinav Bindra, Anjali Bhagwat, Avneet Kaur Sidhu, and Rajayavardhan Singh Rathore were declared as the recipients of the award.

Archer Dola Baneerjee, who recently won the world title and Commonwealth champion boxer A LLakra completed the list.

The incentive, which is $800 per month, may not be substantial in absolute terms as Manavjit Singh put it “especially with the rising rupee” when it comes to preparing for a big event like Olympics, but the unanimous verdict of the players was that it will contribute immensely to their training and morale.

Rifle shooter Anjali Bhagwat said: “Incentives make a world of difference when it come to preparing for big competitions like the Olympic. It makes you feel special and that is very important.”

The players were confident of a good show in Beijing, saying their training is going on expected lines. But players like Manavjit and Bindra though have chalked out their training plans for Beijing. Anjali and Avneet may begin from January 2008.