Rahil Gupta
JAMMU, Dec 15: Ace Fencer Rashid Choudhary in a session with Cross Town News spoke up on his illustrious International and National career and said there is immense talent in Jammu & Kashmir in Fencing.
Editor: Rashid Choudhary, a renown face in fencing, How you started with things?
Rashid: As you know that fencing is one of the major Olympic games event with 48 medals. I Started fencing at the age of 14 years at DBN School in 1994 in Jammu and Fencing n India started in early 80’s . And from 1994, I have been giving my full interest to Fencing.
Editor: How would you rate the upcoming Fencers , Have they got the quality?
Rashid: As far as new talent is concerned in J&K, since last 10-15 yrs if you go through the medal rally in different National and Informational level tournaments/championships you find Fencing is amongst the top with Gymnastic and Wushu. In J&K we have so many young fencers who brought laurels for the state like Ujjwal,Vishal,Javed, Vansh and many more. Now there are more than 100-150 regular trainers in M A stadium centre only.
Editor: This is your second term ad J&K Sports Council Member , How are you helping the concerned Sports segment in the state?
Rashid: First of all I will let you know that I won more than 35 medals in National level for the state and represented the country 11 times in various International championship including prestigious world championship twice. On the bases of my outstanding performance state Governments conferred me with Shere -Kashmir Awards and prestigious State Awards and Nominated me as member of Governing body of Sports in state that is J&K state sports council. Now I am trying my best to promote this Olympic sports in every part of the state. Now we cover almost all the district of Jammu division and last year we also started activity in Kashmir division also with the help of Sports council. Fencing is recognized by every where like School games, University games and National games .
Editor: Fencing somehow is not taken seriously in Indi , but it is the game which can get India medals in Olympics, What should be done to harness talent and promote the game ?
Rashid: Fencing is one of the basic Olympic event as I already told with 48 medals why the small countries of Europe are good in medal rally at Olympics, one of the reason is taht they focus on those Olympics sports those have more medals like Fencing, swimming, athletics, shootings and other likewise sports. Now the Government of India as well as other state have taken some good steps to promote those sports in which more chances for winning Olympics events.
Editor: Are you satisfied with the kind of return you got from the game ?
Rashid: As for as my personal opinion I got every thing from fencing like awards, my job including the chance to do something for the betterment of state sports being a member of state sports council but yes if you say as comparison with other states our players do not get rewards or other facilities. National games rewards in other states are 5 lacs, 3 lacs, 2 lacs for gold, silver and bronze for the medalist of national games .I am the only players who represented the state in national games since 1999 and won medals in all the national games but did not get suitable rewards for the same but I am satisfied with my performances and I kept the name of the J&K alive in the medal tally in the National games. Now a days the medal tally has increased in the national games, a welcome knock for sports in J&k . Moreover now we recommended to the govt to enhance the prize money to the medalist so that our players get equal rewards and name like in other states.
Editor: Your message to upcoming Fencers of J&K?
Rashid: My message is very clear keep trying hard so that we may produce first Olympian among one of them as fencing is a sport where you have every chance to get birth in the major sporting event of world like Olympics games, Asian games.
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