The first option to host the international friendly games in October which had fallen several notches below in the reckoning is back in the thick of things as the All India Football Federation (AIFF) is keen to have the matches at the Balewadi Sports Complex, Pune.

Earlier Goal.com had revealed that the turf at the stadium wasn’t up to the mark which was seconded by the AIFF and Pune District Football Association (PDFA) officials when they inspected the venue a couple of weeks ago.

The Municipal Corporation of Pune on Tuesday felicitated ace woman shooter Tejaswini Sawant on winning a gold medal in the 50-metre rifle category at the World Shooting Championship held in Munich, Germany.

On behalf of the Corporation, Pune Mayor Mohan Singh Rajpal presented a shawl and a cheque of Rs one lakh to Sawant.

Scores of young admirers gathered at this event.

Sawant later speaking to the media persons said that her main goal is to cross her personal best score in the next World Cup.

Pune : Athletes of Mumbai Suburbs dominated the proceedings in the Under-14 boys section at the Maharashtra State Athletics Championship at the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex in Balewadi, finishing with a haul of six medals in all events on Saturday.

The International Olympiad in Informatics 2010 (IOI-2010) in August this year will see Archit Vikrant Karandikar from Pune representing India.

Archit, who is currently pursuing B Tech Computer Science programme from IIT Indore, is the first student from Maharashtra to achieve this feat.

The other students from India who have qualified for the Olympiad are Keshav Dhandhania (Kolkata), Siddharth Krishna (Madanapalle) and Anish Shankar (Chennai). The training camp to select the team was held in Bangalore last month.

MUMBAI: Suspended IPL Chairman Lailt Modi demanded disbandment of BCCI's disciplinary committee, which will probe his alleged irregularities in the running of the Twenty20 league, and said retired Supreme Court judges should look into his case.

In his legal notice to the Cricket Board, Modi has asked for removal of one of the panelists - IPL's interim chairman Chirayu Amin - contending that he cannot be a member as he was one of the investors in the consortium which failed in its bid for buying one of the two new IPL franchises - Pune and Kochi.

The slender 16-year old Ankita Raina wants to hit Centre Court at Wimbledon while lanky 14-year old Rutuja Bhosale wants to definitely get on to the international tennis circuit.

Both have won national tournaments with being Ankita part of the Asian team that will play in Europe. There is also 11-year old Sahil Deshmukh, who still cannot articulate fully what he wants but has got stars in his eyes.

Competitive athletics will acquire a new dimension when the third and final part of the Asian Grand Prix athletics championship unfolds at the JN Stadium here on Wednesday. Its significance lies in the city playing host to a competition of international stature for the first time after the 1985 SAF Games.

Pune : For the second tournament in a row, the Pune women’s rugby team lost out on a title victory to Jungle Crows of Kolkata, in spite of taking an early lead. “We just lost our nerve at the end”, said Surhud Khare, coach and president of RFS Pune.

Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Shashank Manohar hit out at suspended Indian Premier League (IPL) boss Lalit Modi on Saturday, saying he was trying to ‘malign the image’ of the Board and interim IPL chairman Chirayu Amin by alleging that Amin was part of the failed bid for the Pune IPL team.

Manohar alleged that Modi himself had asked the bidders to get Amin to be part of the consortium.

Pune :

Rahul FC recorded a thumping victory beating Dynamites 4-0 in a match for the Second Division of the Peninsula Land Pune Football League played at the Range Hills Ground on Wednesday.

Tejpal Rawat put Rahul FC in the lead with a solo goal in the 12th minute, then capped off a brilliant solo run in the 24 th minute with his second goal. Sagar Mawlinkar added a brace of his own, scoring in the 42nd minute and again in the 53rd to complete the rout.

Azam Campus did not appear for their match, giving their opponents UPSA a walkover to gift them all three points.