STATE TIMES NEWS JAMMU: When whole Nation was celebrating the historic victory by Mirabai Chanu at the Olympics, the J&K mourned the poor functioning of its sports, especially in Weightlifting department which don’t have even a single coach in entire Union Territory to guide the budding lifters. So much so, part of the erstwhile J&K State, Ladakh too left without such facility and the newly carved UT yet to appoint a suitable person to train the weightlifters in the cold desert. Though on the lines of the North Eastern States, J&K too extended with a lot of incentives to raise its infrastructure and develop sports on the professional lines but to the dismay of the ‘corrupt’ and poorly administered system, the State, now a UT, continue to strive for a place in the National sports map. “The only permanent coach with the J&K Sports Council (JKSC) at the MA Stadium retired a few months back leaving the only official training facility in the entire Jammu Division without a guide. Same is the case with Kashmir, where someone takes classes in Srinagar district on volunteer basis,” unhappy with the state of affairs back home, general secretary of the J&K Weightlifting Association, Yudhvir Singh told SAN. Earlier, there was no space for the young lifters to train at MA Stadium, but, with the efforts of retiring Divisional Sports Officer, Jammu, Ravi Singh some space allotted to Weightlifting at the New Indoor Hall, MA Stadium, here. Irony of the poorly driven system remains that the game saw two of its coaches, Ravi Singh and Ashok Singh rising to the position of Divisional Sports Officers (DSOs) of the JKSC, however, they ‘failed’ in their endeavours to do justice with the own game. Ashok Singh is present DSO at Jammu.
