Moodbidri: After Inderjeet Singh won his fifth international gold at Korea with his final throw of 20.27m and made India proud, it was Moodbidri’s turn to honour him. Moodbidri, under the leadership of Alva’s Education Foundation Chairman, Dr M Mohan Alva, donated Rs 5 lakh as a felicitation to the shotput player to fund his training for the Rio Olympics 2016.
After bagging many championships, winning may not be as remote to him as funding and lime light is. Alva’s students contributed around Rs 1 lakh in a day’s collection. The Moodbidri Corporation Bank donated Rs 20,000. The rest of the money was contributed by the institute and common people of the town.
“Its my first felicitation ceremony after wining Gold at World University Games last Wednesday. Dr Alva has encouraged me throughout from 2013 and now, I feel all the more grateful to him,” said Singh at Alva’s Nudisiri Vedike while addressing a young lot of budding athletes whose dreams he shared and whose problems he knew.
Expressing his high set dreams even amidst problems regarding sponsors and training, he said, “It pinches me to know that I have the responsibility of fulfilling India’s dream at Rio. It is my father’s dream too. It is my promise that in the next 1.5 years, I will breath only to win a gold in the Summer Rio Olympics.”
“The reason we are felicitating him here, is to give a role model to our students and express my wish to Indrajit that next year, I want to felicitate him for a Gold Medal at Rio,” said Dr Alva.
Ex-minister Amarnath Shetty, Coach Preetam Singh, Rohit Kumar Kateel, Moodbidri Municipality President Roopa Shetty were also present.