Staff Reporter
ITANAGAR, 17 Nov: The athlete education and assessment sessions for athletes of the state, being conducted under the Arunachal Pradesh Athlete Development Programme, by the Directorate of Sports and GoSports Foundation kick-started here on Wednesday.
Director of Sports Tadar Appa and Deputy Director Mala Linggi were present on the occasion.
Speaking during the inaugural session, Sports Director Tadar Appa said the aim of the programme is to provide opportunities to the athletes and coaches to hone skills from the best available professionals in the field of sports and sports science.
“The government is sponsoring this programme with the hope that athletes will make the best use of it and perform well at an international forum and bring laurels to the state. Our athletes should aim for the Olympic medals,” said Appa.
In the morning session, athletes and coaches were exposed to major discussion points surrounding ‘Mental health and well-being’ by the Head of Psychological Services at Fortis Delhi, Divya Jain. Following that, a session on ‘Injury prevention and management’ was taken by the expert team from Sporting Ethos. Athletes and coaches showed curiosity through the session and clarified a few of their doubts after the session.
In the evening session, a set of athletes were put through physical and health screening assessment, while a few other athletes were facilitated with one-on-one psychological sessions with the experts through the Arunachal Pradesh Elite Athlete Development Programme. Over the next few days, the assessments will continue for the athletes here at the Sangay Lhaden Sports Academy to help them understand their strengths and areas to improve upon.
The Arunachal Pradesh Elite Athlete Development Programme was launched in 2020 by the Directorate of Sport, Arunachal Pradesh, in conjunction with GoSports Foundation to support talented athletes from the state, and create future Olympians. Five disciplines, namely weightlifting, karate, boxing, wushu and judo are part of the programme.
Although the programme was launched in 2020, due to the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, athlete selections were postponed to this year. Eighteen shortlisted athletes and five coaches will attend the sessions, which will cover the topics of mental well-being and injury management- pertinent topics in the sporting world. The sessions will be conducted by experts.
To conduct the selections and offer essential insights, different experts and professionals have arrived in Arunachal Pradesh, such as a high-performance director, physiotherapists, strength & conditioning experts, mental conditioning experts, and physicians. After the education workshops, the selection process will move onto other activities, which will include physical and psychological assessments, goal setting activities, and interviews.
Under the programme, the selected athletes from Arunachal Pradesh will receive scholarships and access to expertise. The objective is ‘the identification of up to15 athletes between 13 to 25 years of age during the term from such Olympic sports as may be mutually agreed between the parties; providing access to sports science support; top-class coaches and training facilities in India and in foreign countries; customizing sporting interventions for athletes; supporting the selected athletes towards achieving their sporting goals and providing goal-based financial scholarships and customized non-financial support to cover each athlete’s individual sporting needs; assisting athletes towards excellence through improvements in their performances, life skills and awareness, providing the structure to succeed in terms of medals or podium finishes at the national and international levels and attempting to take key steps to develop Arunachal Pradesh into a hub of sporting talent development.’
