The city of destiny — Visakhapatnam — is all set to host the biggest athletics event in its history when the three-day Shriram Properties National Inter-District Junior Athletics Meet (NIDJAM) kick-starts at the Port Stadium here on Saturday.
Thousands of rookie athletes, in the u-14 and u-16 segments, from all over the country will showcase their talent in front of administrators, selectors and veterans of the athletics fraternity.
The event has received a record 3,284 entries including 1,210 girls from 292 districts. In the last edition held at Ranchi 2,700 athletes took part.
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This mega event, organised by the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) to spot raw talent in the country, is being organised for the first time in South India. The earlier 12 editions were held at Haridwar and Ranchi.
“The Athletics Federation of India’s team of talent-hunters will also be spotting talent for the national youth camp on the basis of their performance here.
NIDJAM will feature 30 events in track and field in both age categories.
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Twenty events will be held for u-16 and 10 for u-14,” said AFI COO Manish Kumar.
AFI president Adille Sumariwalla, secretary C.K. Walson, Arjuna awardee and long jumper Anju Bobby George, veteran athlete Gurbachan Singh Randhawa and selection committee member J.S. Saini will witness the proceedings.
AFI is providing all facilities for the participants, coaches and technical officials and paying their travelling expenses.
Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu will inaugurate the event on Saturday.
“We will be using the new equipments that we bought for the junior National meet at Vijayawada early this year. We have also brought equipment from the Acharya Nagajurna University athletics academy,” said APAA secretary A.V. Raghavendra.
The 600m (u-14 boys and girls), javelin (u-16 girls), shot put (u-16 boys and girls) and long jump (u-14 boys and girls) finals will be held on the inaugural day.