Northeast Sports festival kicks off

Gangtok, Feb 24 (UNI) The 2ist North East Festival kicked off with a gala opening, here today.

Governor V Rama Rao inaugurated the five-day sports event with a colourful opening function at Palzor Stadium here.

This is for the second time that the state is hosting the prestigious event after a gap of 11 years. The event was last held here in 1996.

About 1,600 sportspersons, including coaches and managers, will be participating in the event. While the state fielded 209 sports persons to compete in various events, Arunachal Pradesh has the smallest contiongent of 99.

Nagaland, which held the event last year, fielded 198 participatns, Assam and Manipur have a team of 192 each, Meghalaya 162, Mizoram 160 and Tripura 159.

The competition will be held in nine disciplines - Archery, Athletics, Badminton, Boxing, Football, Karate, Taekwondo, Table Tennis and Volleyball -- in six venues spread in and around Gangtok.

Athletics will be held at Rangpo mining ground, while Archery in West Point school ground, Boxing in Old Children Park, Volleyball in PNG School ground and Karate, Table Tennis, Tekwondo ad Badminton will be held at Palzor stadium.

Sikkim, which won six medals, including two golds in the just condluded 33rd National Games in Guwahati, is expected to win top slots in Football, Taekondo, Karate, Boxing and Archery.

Sikkim Sports and Youth Affairs Department has made elaborate arrangement for the successful conduct of the event. Minister of state for Sports P S Tamang said that arrangements have been made to provide ethnic food to the guests and to put the participants in hotels as per category, instead of state, to promote national integration and brotherhood.

UNI