Bhubaneswar gears for hockey World Cup

BHUBANESWAR: Exit the Biju Patnaik International Airport and you’ll know the Odisha capital is prepping to host the hockey World Cup. Billboards, posters and creative installations across streets are adding to the build-up of the Nov 28-Dec 16 event.

Having already hosted the 2014 Champions Trophy and the 2017 World League Final, the city will host its third major hockey international event in four years. “Approximately ~82 crore is the World Cup budget. We are getting ready to give everyone a brilliant experience,” said Odisha government’s sports secretary Vishal Dev. Apart from refurbishing the Kalinga Stadium, large-scale landscaping has also helped deck up the surroundings.

CENTRE FOR ATHLETICS

That apart, heavy investment has also gone into developing others sports such as athletics and badminton. “The idea is to move towards strengthening the grassroots. Our high performance centre for athletics should be launched in another two months. We are also looking at a high performance centre for hockey and to host two more major hockey events next year for which discussions are on,” said Dev, also the commissioner of Department of Sports and Youth Services.

The Odisha government is one of the three signatories to a Memorandum of Understanding for the athletics centre along with International Association of Athletics Federations and Athletics Federation of India. Bhubaneswar also hosted the 2017 Asian Athletics Championships.

“We have now become the base for the U-15 national football team. Last year, we hosted the first edition of the Super Cup where all I-League and ISL teams played.” Dev said that a new Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy will be built from scratch in the next 18 months.

SPORT CLIMBING

With sport climbing scheduled to make its debut at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the Odisha government is looking ahead and has already set up a “facility of its kind” for the sport.