Staff Reporter
ITANAGAR, 6 Aug: The lack of sponsorship and the government’s failure to take proper care of the talented sportspersons is badly affecting the players of Arunachal Pradesh.
One of many such players, who could have won glory for the country and the state even at the highest level, is karate player Raja Yangfo.
He is a promising karate player of the state and his talent can be gauged from the fact that he had beaten a player from Kazakhstan, who has now won a bronze medal in the ongoing Tokyo Olympic.
Yangfo had beaten Kazakh player Darkhan Assadilov in the Asian Karate Championship, which was held in Uzbekistan in 2019.
Yangfo laments that he could not play in Word Karate Federation (WKF) organized various karate events, which are required to improve ranking, only because of lack of sponsors.
“Without participating in WKF organized events, like Karate-1, Karate Premier League and Karate Series, you can’t improve ranking. Only the highest-ranked players (i.e. not below 30 in world ranking) are short-listed for the Olympic qualifying events,” he said.
A four-time national champion and a commonwealth gold medalist, Yangfo also said that an ongoing in-fighting between two national karate organizations is affecting the karate players of the country.
Meanwhile, an Arunachal Karate Association (AKA) official told that the state government is yet to reimburse the expenses incurred by the association (AKA) for participation in some Asian and international karate events, which were held many years ago.
