Sports Business Beyond 22 Yards
Fortune India|February 2024
Be it athletics, football, kabaddi, hockey or kho kho, India Inc. is making serious investments in sports outside of cricket.
AJITA SHASHIDHAR
Sports Business Beyond 22 Yards

IT’S 8 A.M. ON A FRIDAY MORNING. Anjali Barya is training at Tata Steel’s Naval Tata High Performance Centre (HPC) for Hockey at the Kalinga stadium in Bhubaneswar. After an hour-long work-out session, the 18-year-old hits the turf for a practice session with her coach. After representing India at a junior championship during a four-nation tour of Germany, Spain, England and India, Barya is now getting ready for a host of upcoming national and international tournaments. “My goal is to represent India at the Olympics,” she says, proudly flaunting her Hockey India jersey.

Barya has been training at Tata Steel’s centre since 2019 (when she was barely 14!). The steel major takes care of her training, physiotherapy, nutrition, as well as her education. Till date, several girls and boys training at the HPC have made it to various national and international hockey tournaments this year, which played in Germany for junior women’s Hockey Asia Cup. Barya is now hoping to make it to the senior national women hockey team.

Adjacent to the hockey HPC at the Kalinga Stadium are HPCs for athletics and swimming run by Reliance Foundation and JSW Sports, respectively. Their goal is to nurture talent who can win medals at the Olympics, Asian Games and other events. At Reliance’s HPC, 17-year-old Sabita Toppo (100 metre hurdles) and 16-year-old Bapi Hansda (100 and 400 metre hurdles) are training for national and international tournaments. While Toppo won a silver medal at the Asian Youth Athletic Championship in Kuwait City in 2022, Hansda bagged gold in 400 metre hurdles at the 18th National Youth Athletics Championship in April 2023.

Denne historien er fra February 2024-utgaven av Fortune India.

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Denne historien er fra February 2024-utgaven av Fortune India.

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