Gujarat cross their best medal haul ever with their tenth gold

Gujarat have truly arrived as a sporting state. With five days left for the immensely successful 36th National Games to draw to a close, the hosts have surpassed their best-ever performance in the Games, justifying the State’s decision to step in at short notice and stage the Games.

As hosts, the state had already created history by organising the National Games in less than 100 days. Gujarat upgraded and spruced up all the venues in six cities and left no stone unturned to give over 7,000 athletes a memorable experience. But with their athletes grabbing the opportunity to showcase their rise, Gujarat’s decision has been vindicated.

“I commend the Gujarat government for taking up the challenge of hosting the Games in such a short time,” honourable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi said at the Opening Ceremony 10 days back.

The sports fans of Gujarat will, however, be more pleased with how their athletes have performed. The moment they won their 10th gold on Friday night, with their star swimmer Maana Patel herself scooping three from the swimming pool, they had recorded their best return in the National Games.

“The sports scene in Gujarat has changed dramatically in the last decade. The government has introduced many schemes, including the highly popular Shaktidoot scheme. Khel Mahakumbh has motivated the masses to take to sports,” Maana Patel said when asked about the support from the state government.

Gujarat today also boasts of many high-performance centres to train their athletes, in addition to world-class stadia.

“The PDDU Stadium in Surat is one of the best indoor facilities that I have seen,” two-time Olympic medal winner PV Sindhu said during her visit to Gujarat. “It can host not only the India Open but any mega international tournament too,” she enthused of the stadium, which hosted the country’s finest table tennis and badminton players.

Chief Technical Officer and Chief National Coach of rowing, Ismail Baig couldn’t stop gushing over the Sabarmati course. “It is easily the best in the country. Gujarat can now become the hub for international events,” he declared even as a couple of Olympians attested that it was even better that the course used at the Tokyo Olympics.