An arduous four-km trek and 40-km bus ride later, Binodini Dang and her 12-year-old daughter Rosaline arrive at their destination — a deep-blue synthetic hockey turf perched on the edge of a forest. They have come all the way from the sleepy village of Asurkhol, tucked away in Odisha’s hills, to a remote town, Gurundia, in the Sundargarh district.
For Binodini, a 40-year-old tribal woman, the sight of the hockey turf is more than just a relief; it symbolises hope for her daughter’s future. Sundargarh is known to produce more hockey players than any other district in India, and Binodini prays that her daughter, too, will represent her country in the sport one day.
Rosaline has joined a group of 110 young girls and boys who reside in the rooms adjacent to the turf. In return for their contribution of raw rice and ₹300 a month, they will get rigorous training that will shape them into professional hockey players. Although the boarding facilities are less than ideal, the newly laid synthetic turf in the remote town of Gurundia stands as a testament to the State’s ambitious foray into the field of sports.
“The struggle [to send her daughter for training] is only temporary. I think it will pay off in the long run,” says Binodini.
Another stadium with synthetic hockey turf lies just a block away in Rajgangpur. This stadium, like the one in Gurundia, offers a significant boost to the residents of the neighbouring village of Kukuda, which has sent six players to the current Indian women’s hockey team. Two girls from nearby villages have also found a place in the national squad. On any given day, as many as 80 boys and girls can be seen practising on the turf, which lies a kilometre away from Kukuda.
Dilip Tirkey, Hockey India president and former captain of the Indian men’s hockey team, says the availability of synthetic turf is no small feat. “Finding synthetic turf at one’s doorstep was unthinkable a few years ago. Many senior players played hundreds of games on uneven ground before getting a chance to even step onto synthetic turf,” he says.
In recognition of Sundargarh’s passion for hockey, the State government has made provisions for basic coaching facilities in all blocks of the district. Sundargarh now has 17 synthetic hockey turfs, nearly two-thirds of the State’s total of 25.
Beyond hockey
Track and field athletes like Bapi Hansda, Sabita Toppo, and Kishore Jena prove that Odisha’s contribution to sports is not just restricted to hockey.
Hansda, who made history by becoming the first Indian to bag the silver medal in the men’s 400m hurdles category at the Asian Youth Athletics Championships earlier this year, could have had a very different life had the State’s robust sports infrastructure not supported his dreams. Hailing from Balasore, Hansda lost his father at an early age. and moved in with his brother, who worked as a sweeper at a railway station in Jajpur district A turning point came for him when a Physical Education teacher at his school recognised his potential and introduced him to a coach at a local stadium. Hansda was subsequently sent to the Sports Authority of India hostel in Cuttack and later to a high-performance centre (HPC) in Bhubaneswar. The seventeen-year-old has never looked back since.
Similarly, 20-year-old Toppo, daughter of a daily wager from Sundargarh, secured a silver medal in the girls’ 100m hurdles at the Asian Youth Athletics Championship in Kuwait City last year despite the untimely loss of her mother. Her humble beginnings could be traced to her admission to a sports hostel in her district, after which she secured a spot in an HPC in Bhubaneswar on the back of her talent.
Of the three athletes, perhaps the most inspiring story is of 28-year-old Jena, who clinched a silver medal at the Asian Games in October this year with a javelin throw that landed just short of the throw by world champion Neeraj Chopra.
Although he was desperate to secure a job in the Army to help support his farmer parents, Jena’s talent in volleyball and subsequent admission into a government-run sports hostel helped him recognise his aptitude for the javelin. He went on to break the State record for the longest javelin throw in 2017 before bringing India glory at the Asian Games.
Meanwhile, Odisha’s recent success in sports can be seen most clearly in its performance in the 2022 Khelo India Youth Games. The State jumped 17 places to the ninth spot on the scoreboard, an impressive feat given that it was ranked 26th, much closer to the bottom, in the previous year’s edition of the games.
The catalyst
One can point to a moment, exactly a decade ago, when sports became a priority for the State government — the launch of ‘Kalinga Lancers’, a professional field hockey team jointly owned by Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO) and Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL), in Bhubaneswar.
The development created considerable buzz in the State, and spurred the administration to host several hockey tournaments despite its limited experience in organising major sporting events.
From there on, Odisha successfully hosted the FIH (The Fédération Internationale de Hockey) Hockey Champions Trophy in 2014, the Indo-Japan Hockey Series in 2015, the Hockey World League in 2017, the Hockey Men’s World Cup in 2018, and the FIH Hockey Olympic Qualifiers in 2019. Hockey stadiums in the State witnessed a surge in visitors, matching the fervour usually reserved for cricket matches.
Another significant moment came in 2017, when Jharkhand withdrew as the host of the 2017 Asian Athletics Championships at the last moment, leaving Bhubaneswar to emerge as the new host for the tournament. Moving with unprecedented speed, the Odisha government renovated the capital’s Kalinga Stadium in just 90 days.
In the following year, Odisha went on to become the official sponsor of both the men’s and women’s national hockey teams. It will continue to sponsor them until 2033 — a record for a State. Barring the two years of COVID-19, Odisha has hosted 12 major national and international events since 2013.
Biggest spender
In its bid to be the best in the field, Odisha has emerged as the highest spender in creating sports infrastructure in India.
From a paltry sports budget of ₹4.22 crore in 2000-01, the State has allocated a sum of ₹1,223.16 crore to sports in the current financial year, out of a total budget of ₹2.45 lakh crore. In comparison, a much bigger State like Uttar Pradesh has allocated only ₹957 crore this year, followed by West Bengal at ₹788 crore, Madhya Pradesh at ₹738 crore, and Maharashtra at ₹640 crore.
In its search for talent outside hockey, Odisha has knocked on the doors of akhadas (traditional exercise centres) near the 12th-century Shree Jagannath Temple upon noticing the lack of weightlifters in the heavyweight category.
Worth the ‘weight’
Odisha Sports Secretary R. Vineel Krishna explains. “Pandas [priests] are known for their traditional fitness regimen and robust physiques. So, the government allotted ₹50,000 to each akhada last year and incentivised the priests to explore weightlifting,” he says.
The Sports Department is now investing ₹8 crore to train Puri’s priests in weightlifting, and organises regular weightlifting competitions throughout the year.
Nearly 200 km away, Ganjam district is home to a 200-seater hostel designed exclusively for weightlifters — the first of its kind in India. Besides, district-level indoor badminton stadiums also include facilities for weight training, taking the total count of such platforms in the State to 150.
Infrastructural support
Odisha has established a number of HPCs through partnerships with multinational companies with business interests in the State. Currently, eight sports, including swimming, shooting, hockey, football, weightlifting, and gymnastics, have dedicated HPCs, all of which have reserved 25% seats for the State’s athletes. Notably, all HPCs are manned by a chief coach, junior coaches, trainers, and physiotherapists.
Some of the collaborative HPCs include the Abhinav Bindra Targeting Performance Centre, the Reliance Foundation Youth Sports for athletics, JSW Sports for swimming, Tata group for hockey, All India Football Federation (AIFF) for football development, and a tie-up between the Aditya Birla Group and the Gagan Narang Sports Promotion Foundation for shooting.
International organisations like FIFA (Fédération internationale de football association) have also displayed interest in the State. When FIFA was scouting for suitable centres to set up an academy under its Talent Development Scheme in India, it chose Bhubaneswar, leading the government to develop six FIFA-standard fields in the city. Krishna adds that Arsène Wenger, the chief of global football development at FIFA, was “quite impressed” by the sports infrastructure in Odisha. “Apart from the football grounds, he [Wenger] visited the sports science centre and equated the facilities with the international standards,” the Sports Secretary adds.
Other noteworthy facilities include the state-of-the-art Kalinga Sports Complex in Bhubaneswar, complete with a temperature-controlled Olympic-size pool and the capacity to seat a thousand people; the Birsa Munda Hockey Stadium at Rourkela, which is the largest hockey stadium in India and has a seating capacity of over 20,000; and 90 Biju Patnaik multipurpose indoor stadiums, 314 rural mini-stadiums, and 149 urban mini-stadiums across the State.
“Given the State’s contribution to the field of sports, Odisha’s athletes will outrank their competitors in five or six years,” says Krishna.
Sports science centre
With the establishment of the sports science centre in Bhubaneswar, gone are the days when top Indian sportspersons, including former captain of the Indian hockey team Prabodh Tirkey and former Olympian Lazarus Barla, had to depend on vaidyas [traditional healers] for their injuries.
“I, along with others, relied on the vaidyas‘ unscientific trial-and-error remedies,” says Barla, who, as head coach of Panposh hostel, now oversees the training of 150 budding hockey players.
‘Teach them early’
To instil confidence in the idea of sports as a long-term career, the Odisha government has put its faith in a bottom-up approach that seeks to educate children about the opportunities in the field at an early age.
Teaming up with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the government has introduced the Olympic Value Education Program (OVEP) in over 350 schools, reaching out to 2.5 lakh children. The initiative aims to impart life skills and values and advocates lifelong sports participation for a healthy lifestyle.
Moreover, as many as 6,000 athletes undergo grassroots training and take part in summer camps across the State.
A newly launched scheme, Yuba Odisha Nabin Odisha, rolled out this year, further aims to draw the youth into sports. Under the scheme, the government has introduced an annual tournament at the block level, with over 5 lakh students having already registered to participate in events like cricket, football, hockey, and kabaddi competitions. The event also doubles up as a platform for talent scouting.
Martin Owen, head coach of HPC Athletics, is excited about the talent pool in Odisha. “The process to tap talent, provide them a platform for training, and make them eligible to participate in international tournaments is progressing steadily,” he says.
And that’s what keeps the hope alive for mothers like Binodini, who bids a tearful farewell to her daughter after placing her in the care of the hockey centre in Gurundia. “My dream of watching Rosaline playing hockey on the big screen will come true,” she says with conviction.
