Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla lays foundation stone of synthetic athletics track in Kota

Bharatiya Janata MP and Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla laid the foundation stone of synthetic athletics track at Srinathapuram Stadium in Rajasthan's Kota on Sunday.

Bharatiya Janata MP and Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla laid the foundation stone of synthetic athletics track at Srinathapuram Stadium in Rajasthan's Kota on Sunday. According to an official statement, the track has been constructed at the cost of Rs 7 crore.

"Today is a huge day for the Sportspersons as the laid Synthetic track will provide great facilities to the players, especially during the Rainy season," Lok Sabha speaker said addressing a public gathering. "The sportspersons were demanding for the establishment of a synthetic track for quite a long time and it gives me immense pleasure to fulfill their demands," he said adding that India is on the path of expanding its source and resources for achieving a decoration at the international levels.

He further showed faith in the sportsmen here and asserted that the country's sportspersons will help achieve the goal of becoming a superpower. He expressed hopes for more medals during this Commonwealth Games and said, "The players will bring as many honours as possible, and for that, we are moving forward for becoming a superpower in sports."

"Kota is an industrial educational town, whose players would get facilities as per the international standards and more grounds will be available to them as per the standards of each sport," he added. Currently, India is sixth in medals tally with five medals, two gold, two silver, and one bronze.

At the University of Birmingham Hockey and Squash centre, India's world number 15 Saurav Ghosal had a positive start to his campaign with a fluent 3-0 win over Sri Lankan Shamil Wakeel. Day two also saw the commencement of the Athletics events with the Men's and Women's Marathons starting the proceedings. India's Nitendra Singh Rawat finished 12th in the Men's Marathon clocking a time of 2:19:22 hrs. Victor Kiplangat of Uganda won gold with a time of 2.10.55 hrs.

Boxer Lovlina Borgohain comfortably won her bout to reach the quarter-final. The women's hockey team beat Wales 3-1 thanks to a brace from Vandana Katariya to lead the group standings. India also notched up a second win in Boxing with Md. Husamuddin and won comfortably against Amzolele Dyeyi of South Africa by a unanimous 5-0 margin.

The Indian badminton mixed team featuring PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth also reached the quarter-finals. The nation also had a few victories in Lawn Bowls on the day with the pair of Dinesh Kumar and Sunil Bahadur getting the better of Cook Islands 15-8 in Men's Pairs Section C Group E match, which came as the country's second victory in the competition (Lawn Bowls).

In Cycling India's Mayuri Lute finished 20th and Triyasha Paul 23rd in the Women's Sprint qualifiers while Meenakshi ended 15th in Women's 3000m Individual Pursuit qualifiers. In the Men's 4000m Individual Pursuit qualifiers Vishavjeet Singh was 18th while Dinesh Kumar finished in 19th spot. In the Men's Keirin, David Beckham finished fourth in Heat-2 while Esow Alben was relegated in Heat-4. The last two named also finished second in the Repachages to bow out. Tania Choudhury continued to have a tough time in Women's Singles Sectional Play in Lawn Bowls, suffering yet another loss, this time going down 10-21 to Wales' Laura Daniels in a Group B match

Ruthuja Nataraj qualified for the all-around finals after finishing 16th in the qualifiers. Pranati Nayak finished second in vault apparatus and qualified for the vault finals. She is also the second reserve for the all-around finals. (ANI)

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