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MOKOKCHUNG — The Mokokchung District Badminton Association (MDBA), with a vision set in 2015 to produce at least one badminton Olympian by 2040, will be hosting the Northeast Invitational Badminton Tournament from December 12 to the 15th. The objective is to gather insights and advice from former and current champions of the Northeast region of India.
Addressing a press conference in Mokokchung on Friday, I Lipokonen Jamir, the convener of the tournament, informed that this is the first of its kind for Mokokchung district. The tournament will be organised by MDBA under the aegis of Nagaland Badminton Association and Mokokchung District Sports Council.
He highlighted that there are three objectives behind the hosting the tournament. Competition and popularising badminton as a sport are two basic objectives, but the main emphasis is in inviting different sport personalities from the northeast region, especially those in the field of badminton, and getting their valuable inputs on how to achieve the 2040 vision.
In this connection, he informed that invitations have been sent to badminton associations of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Sikkim and Tripura as well as the Badminton Association of India (BAI) through NBA.
Jamir also highlighted the activities undertaken by the MDBA towards the 2040 vision and said that inter-club; inter-school, and inter-district talent hunt programmes and coaching camps have been conducted.
He said that MDBA has systematically conducted several activities over the years and have come to the conclusion that it has only contributed in producing champions at the state level. When the state champions are sent for regional and national level events, there is a huge gap in their performance when compared with their counterparts from other states. It was thus concluded that unless the current activities are supported with the establishment of a badminton academy, achieving the goal to have an Olympian by 2040 would be a daunting task, Jamir explained.
Jamir went on to say that this tournament would be the springboard to garner knowledge and insights for the association to establish and oversee a badminton academy.
Chief referee of the tournament, Mar informed that players from Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya and Sikkim have confirmed participation and the organising committee is expecting more positive response from rest of the states in the region.
Even players from Bhutan are very eager to participate in the tournament; however, they could not partake in the tournament since they are not under BAI, he said.
The tourney will be held under six-categories, namely, women’s double, men’s double, men’s 75+ doubles, men’s 85+ doubles, men’s 95+ doubles and men’s 105+ doubles with a prize pool of up to INR 4 lakh, besides cash prizes for every match won by a player.