He may have been replaced as the weightlifting coach to Beijing following protest over his credentials, but Deodutt Sharma on Wednesday stood firmly behind his ward, Monika Devi, who has been withdrawn from the Olympics contingent after failing a dope test.

Refusing to believe that the Manipuri lifter took anabolic salt for which she was tested positive, Sharma, who also coaches the Army, said perhaps she had been made a scapegoat.

Tapan Mohanta
New Delhi, July 22 (PTI) It started off with a promise to deliver Olympic medals. But going by the trend, it seems, the promise is fizzling out at the Pune-located Army Sports Institute (ASI).

With their strength at the Olympics reduced to one from last time's two, and their much fancied archers coming out a dud having failed to even make the India squad for Olympics trial, their 'Mission Olympic Medal' draws a blank ahead of Beijing 2008.

New Delhi, July 15 (IANS) Indian Weightlifting Federation (IWF) Tuesday unanimously selected L. Monika Devi ahead of Shailaja Pujari for the next month’s Beijing Olympics. Monika was selected after a selection trial in Bangalore, resting all allegations of bribery in the selection. Monika won a silver and two bronze in the Asian Championships in Japan in April-May to help book the berth for India, and will compete in the 69kg category. Shailaja (75kg) has been named as the reserve lifter.

New Delhi, July 18: Four years ago, Surender Singh, then with the Garwhal Regiment, would never have thought of representing India in Olympics. A cross-country runner then, Surender did not realise his potential in the long-distance running of 5,000m and 10,000m till he landed in Pune's Army Sports Institute (ASI), an Army's nursery centre setup in their 'Operation Olympic Medal' mission.

Having done brilliantly in the Asian Cross Country held in Pune in 2004, Surender came into the notice of ASI where he changed tracks to 5,000 and 10,000m events on coach Ridmal Singh's insistence.

New Delhi, July 15: Weightlifter L Monika Devi was unanimously chosen ahead of Shailaja Pujari to represent the country in the Beijing Olympic Games after a selection trial in Bangalore, bringing to an end a selection controversy and allegations of bribery.

Monika, who won a silver and two bronze in the Asian Championship in Japan in April-May to help book the lone berth for India, will compete in the 69kg category while Shailaja (75kg) would be the reserve lifter.

KOLKATA, Jul 3: A baton relay will commence from Delhi University campus on August one and pass through nine states to mark the beginning of the 3rd Commonwealth Youth Games to be held in Pune from October 12-18.

Aimed at promoting "sports culture", the baton relay will criss-cross Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Goa, Karnataka and Maharashtra and will cover a distance of 8,000 kilometers before reaching the venue on October 8, Indian Olympic Association president Suresh Kalmadi said on Thursday.

It is a sporting event still to be held, but the race has already begun.

Pune is running short of time to complete work for its biggest-ever sporting event, the Commonwealth Youth Games.

With just over 100 days left for the event, vigorous activities are going on at the Balewadi Stadium, which will house over 2500 sportsmen and delegates from 71 countries.

However, the list of pending work is enormous with subways, roads and beautification work still left to be done.

As many as 12 teams participated on the opening day of the tournament in Pune with WNS and Fujitsu winning couple of games each.

As predicted by the Syntel captain Dhanraj before the tournament, WNS will the team to beat and indeed that was the case.

WNS won their games Mastek and Thermax and thus strengthened their position to win the Champions Trophy.

The games were closely fought as the teams were well balanced. The three draws speaks for itself.

The tournament was kicked-off by Mahindra United player Paresh Shivalkar.

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New Delhi, May 5 Only last week, Delhi’s teenage one-lap runner Neha Nissar had talked to her new coach Dinesh Rawat about her dream to win a medal in the upcoming Pune Youth Commonwealth Games.

But on Saturday, three weeks before the Youth nationals — which could have been her ticket to the national squad — her dream died prematurely, after the youngster met with a fatal accident in Noida. Another promising athlete, Angad Singh, also died in the accident.