Tata Steel has sponsored the Special Olympics Bharat for the upcoming Special Olympics World Summer Games, 2015 to be held from July 25 to August 2 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
In a send-off ceremony organised today at JRD sports complex, Sunil Bhaskaran, vice-president (Corporate Services), Tata Steel, interacted and encouraged the contingent from Jharkhand, which included eight athletes and four coaches who have been selected to represent India in these games.
The 2015 Special Olympics World Summer games would feature competitions in aquatics, gymnastics, track and field, basketball, football, cycling, golf and other summer sports, Bhaskaran said.
Nearly 7,000 athletes and 3,000 coaches representing 177 countries along with more than 5,00,000 spectators were expected to attend the world games, he said.
Special Olympics Bharat was sending it second largest contingent with 242 athletes, 62 coaches, six heads of delegations and 24 officials and assistant staff, he said.
Indian athletes would participate in 14 events.
The eight athletes and four coaches selected from Jharkhand for the games are - (Men)- Mamun Rashid Khan (athletics), Anurag Chakraborty, Tejender Singh (both basketball), Md Sajid (football), Md Abdul Saquib, Md Sahaban (both softball), Nooral Hassan (power lifting) and (Women)- Gurbir Kaur (Badminton).
The coaches were Seema Nag (Women-Badminton) and in the men's section, Rajesh Prasad (Head coach-basketball), O S Ashok Kumar (football) and Satbir Singh Sahota (cycling).
Special Athletes from Jharkhand had so far won nine Gold, 14 Silver and nine Bronze medals in the previous editions of World Summer and Winter Games, Bhaskaran added.
