Water-logged courts hit badminton tourney

Rain exposed the state of infrastructure at SMS stadium on Friday as water-logged courts led to shifting of the national subjunior badminton ranking tournament.

Around 1200 children have come to the city to participate in the under-13 and -15 tournament, organised at the indoor stadium and the badminton court of the stadium.

After the downpour, the badminton court — venue of girls’ tournaments— was waterlogged.

Girls and their parents were shifted to the Jaipur Sport Academy-124 (a private complex), which offered its facilities free of cost for badminton matches.

“Our association is known for holding good tournaments but today water seeped into the courts, which affected the game,” said KK Sharma, Rajasthan Badminton Association secretary. “Even at the indoor stadium, game was disturbed at two courts. Such issues with infrastructure do affect tournaments.”

The state government has developed sports infrastructure in all the districts, but the facilities require maintenance, Sharma said.

“Like the memorandum of understanding signed with the Cricket Association, an arrangement should be done for better management of badminton tournaments.”

He said, “Around 300 children from Rajasthan are participating in the tournament. We are giving results; of 10 titles in the north zone, seven were won by state players.”

Sunil Kjardikar, a parent from Mumbai, said, “It is a national-level tournament but management was poor. It’s monsoon season; prior arrangements should have been there. My daughter’s match was scheduled at 8am, which happened at 11am. We were running for information; transportation for the new venue was arranged after parents raised the issue.”

Hemant Gokhe, another parent from Nagpur, said, “Initially there were problems due to rain but the new venue had good courts and facilities.”

Academy director Atul Gupta said, “There are six courts here (in the academy) and all arrangements have been made.”

Rajasthan Sports Council secretary Narayan Singh said, “We visited both venues; the indoor court was all right. There was water seeping at badminton court as roof sheet needs to repaired, which can be done after monsoon.”

He added that ₹2 crore has been sanctioned for maintenance of the indoor stadium.