PANAJI
Goa is host to the 43rd Yonex Sunrise All India Masters (Veteran) National Badminton championships 2018-19. The championship has been organised by Goa Badminton Association (GBA) under the aegis of Badminton Association of India (BAI) and in collaboration with the Sports Authority of Goa (SAG).
The Qualifying matches of the championship have commenced on January 28, 2019 and will conclude on January 29.
The championships are being held at the multipurpose stadium, Peddem, Mapusa in the categories of 35+, 40+, 45+, 50+, 55+, 60+, 65+ and 70+ age groups.
The main draw will commence on January 30th with the inaugural function scheduled at 9 am.
Sports Minister Manohar Azgaonkar, Ashok Kumar (Sports Secretary), Omar Rashid (Secretary – Events, BAI), Digambar Kamat (Chief Patron, GBA) and V.M. Prabhudesai (Executive Director, SAG), will grace the inaugural function.
Narahar Thakur is the organising president of the championship while the organising secretary is Sandeep Heble.
The championship budget is Rs 26 lakhs with the SAG contributing Rs 8 lakhs as organisational grants.
The championship is being conducted by qualified BAI officials, 45 in number, who have been selected from various parts of the country.
In addition, there are 20 State and District level officials from Goa who are part of the officiating team. The championship is selection for the World Masters championship which will be held in Poland later during the year. From January 30th, top National and International stars such as Sanave Thomas, Abhin Shyam Gupta, Joy Anthony, Sameer Abassi, Rutupurna Kulkarni, Shrikant Bakshi and Goan siblings Ashutosh and Leena Pednekar will be seen in action.
Goa’s challenge will be spearheaded by Felipe Barbosa who won a Bronze medal at the 42nd Indian Masters Badminton held last year in Vishakapatnam while former State champions Pankaj Naik, Sandhya Melashami , Kanji brothers Sandip and Kamlesh, Vaman Fallary, Dr Satish Kudchadkar, Tanaji Sawant, Peter Tellis, K Vamanan and Suresh Kumar Raghavan are other top names in the Goa team, who will be expected to put up a good show.
For the first time in Goa, 15 courts are being utilised for the championships which have record participation of 2236 entries and 1881 players.
The Chief Referee for the Championship is Rajeev Srivastava (UP) who will be assisted by Suryaveer Singh (Raj) and Vivek Sharaf (Mah) who are the Deputy Referees. K.K. Sharma has been nominated by the BAI as the observer for the championships along with two other Technical committee members Arun Kakkar (UP) and H Lalnusiama (Mizoram).
The finals are scheduled on Sunday, February 3rd from 9.30am.
