Latest news with #ISTAF
The Sun
3 days ago
- Sport
- The Sun
Malaysia recommended as host for 2026 Sepaktakraw World Cup
MALAYSIA has been proposed as the host for the 2026 ISTAF Sepaktakraw World Cup (Men and Women) by the International Sepaktakraw Federation (ISTAF), skipping the traditional bidding process. ISTAF secretary-general Datuk Abdul Halim Kader stated that the recommendation was based on the Malaysian Sepaktakraw Association's (PSM) proven expertise in managing high-profile international events. The suggestion was initially put forward by Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh during the ASTAF Asian Sepaktakraw Cup in May and has since gained solid backing from the federation. 'PSM has shown its capability by successfully hosting the ISTAF Sepaktakraw World Cup Kuala Lumpur 2024 and the ASTAF Asian Sepaktakraw Cup 2025, supported by 70 technical officials from 16 countries,' he said in a statement today. The announcement came after Datuk Mohd Sumali Reduan was re-elected as PSM president for the 2025–2028 term during the association's Annual General Meeting at the World Trade Centre here yesterday. Abdul Halim congratulated Mohd Sumali on his reappointment, praising his role in revitalising sepaktakraw in Malaysia and internationally. 'The continuity in leadership signifies stability, unity, and a clear direction for the future of sepaktakraw in Malaysia and beyond,' he added. He also highlighted the significance of grassroots development under the National Sepaktakraw Development Programme (NSTDP), which engages over 500 young athletes from 25 institutions nationwide.
The Hindu
27-04-2025
- Sport
- The Hindu
Bihar's new bounce
Sahil Kumar (16), is sweating it out at Patliputra Indoor Stadium, in Patna, Bihar. He wants to give it has all for the upcoming Khelo India Youth Games from May 4th to 15th at various cities in Bihar. Sahil is a SepakTakraw player, a sport that was first played in India in the 1980s, but is gaining popularity now. For the first time at the youth games, the players of SepakTakraw will compete for medals. Last month, Bihar hosted the International SepakTakraw Federation (ISTAF) World Cup in Patna, with the men's team winning gold in one event for the first time. Many like Sahil, whose parents are daily wage workers, are excited about the game that promises to offer them new opportunities. Thanks to the world cup, Sahil and about 100 others play on a mat imported from Thailand, which costs around ₹40 lakh. Players aim to get the rattan or synthetic mesh ball over the net, using the hand only to release the ball, after which head, knees, chest, feet, and thighs are used to propel it. This involves agility and acrobatics. 'I have been playing this sport for the past seven years and now I see my future in this. The best part of this sport is that unlike other sports like cricket, it does not require much equipment. Everything is provided by the association (SepakTakraw Federation of India) and the Bihar government,' Sahil says. He is a feeder, who serves the ball to the striker. Out of about 600 players in Bihar, currently six play at the international level. Bihar is now placed second at the national level, and will soon have an international academy, on the lines of what Thailand has, says Raveendran Sankaran, the director general cum CEO of the Bihar State Sports Authority (BSSA), an autonomous body registered in March 2023. The sport was officially introduced in Bihar in 1999, and the first international players rose in 2001. In March 2024, the sport was approved by the Department of Personal Training, so sportspeople who represent India or Bihar can access government jobs through the reservation quota, without going through an examination or interview. Now, more people are choosing it as a career option. Sankaran says, 'SepakTakraw is one of our priority games as it is part of Asian Games and the probability of medal-winning prospects at this level for India and a Bihar player as part of Indian team is high.' Subhead At the Khelo India Youth Games, 18 players from Bihar will participate, out of which 15 will play in all four events: Regu (three players), Doubles (two players), Quad (four players), and Mixed (girl and boy players). Another player Aarti Kumari (16) who bagged the best player award in 22nd Junior National SepakTakraw Championship held in Assam in 2018, says, 'I have been playing this sport from 2017. I used to play this game in Coconut Park (in Kankarbagh, Patna), and was introduced to it by a friend who was a professional player.' She says her family supports her through her 4-5-hour practice session. 'I dream about playing at the international level.' She adds that every day, she practises for four to five hours at the same indoor stadium as Sahil, under the guidance of Bihar's SepakTakraw head coach Pankaj Kumar Ranjan. Her father has a sells sattu (roasted gram flour) in the morning and eggs in the evening, from a shop at Kankarbagh locality, some 75 kilometres north of Patna, the State capital. In 2023, the Bihar government launched a scheme called 'Medal Lao Nauki Pao (Bring home a medal; get a job) under which A-grade (officer cadre) jobs are given directly to sportspeople winning medals at national and international levels. In 2024 under the scheme, 71 players were given appointment letters for government jobs in various departments without them having to go through an examination and interview. Rashmi Kumari (17), another player, says there are high chances of getting a job in the police force if she plays at the national and Asia level. Subhead 'SepakTakraw is not yet well known, but new players are showing interest in it, and we are getting new admissions on a regular basis. We have players who are studying in 6th and 7th standards and have played at national level,' says Ranjan, who is also an office bearer with the All Bihar Sepak Takraw Association (ABSA). He says that in the 26th Sub Junior National SepakTakraw Championship in March last year, Bihar's sub-junior girls team won a bronze medal, while the sub-junior boys team was the national runner-up. At the 27th Junior National SepakTakraw Championship, also in March 2024, Bihar's boys' team defeated Uttar Pradesh 2-0, winning the title of National Champion. 'Earlier, states like Manipur, Maharashtra, Delhi, Odisha, and Uttar Pradesh dominated the game,' Rajan says. Most of the players playing this sport are from Patna, West Champaran, Nalanda, Muzaffarpur, Katihar, and Saran. Bijay Kumar Sharma, the secretary of ABSA, says most players are from financially weaker sections of society. In the early 2000s, when SepakTakraw had just been introduced to children, he remembers, 'There were hardly any players in Bihar and we used to almost force boys to participate in the game. When the first time the Bihar team went to Delhi, it was like a fun trip for the players, because no one was serious about the game. Now, slowly and gradually, players are taking serious interest in it. Karunesh Kumar, one of the SepakTakraw players who represented Bihar at international level in 2002 as striker, says that Bihar has become an emerging State in terms of sports, particularly SepakTakraw. Karunesh, who is currently sports officer at IIT, Patna, as well as treasurer of ABSA says, 'I played the sport for eight years, but after a knee injury I had to quit it. When I started playing in 1999, there were not even 10 players. At the time Ramakant Singh, who was the only player who had played at the international level and trained me at the Ganga Devi Mahila College.' Subhead When the men's team won at the recent world cup, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya extended their congratulations to the players for winning the gold medal by defeating Japan. 'Congratulations to our contingent for displaying phenomenal sporting excellence at the SepakTakraw World Cup 2025! The contingent brings home 7 medals. The Men's Regu team created history by bringing home India's first Gold. This spectacular performance indicates a promising future for India in the global SepakTakraw arena,' Modi had said in the X post on March 26, 2025. Bobby Kumar (19), from Chhapra village, Saran District, on the national team since 2021, was a striker on the gold-medal-winning team at the world cup. Bobby is at a training camp in Goa as part of the India team for the SepakTakraw Asian Cup 2025, set to take place from May 9 to May 18, 2025, in Kuala Lumpur. Over a phone call Bobby says there were challenges when he began playing: his parents were not happy, and not many others played so the there was no eco-system for it. 'Like other children I would play gully cricket with my friends, but a senior who used to play SepakTakraw asked me to try this sport.' Bobby hopes SepakTakraw is telecast on television like cricket and other sports are. 'Cricket and its players have become famous because children continuously watch it on television, and parents want their children to become like Virat Kohli and Mahendra Singh Dhoni. If the same thing happens with this sport, it will equally become famous.' Subhead Bihar has gone through a rough patch in terms of sports: The last world cup cricket match was held in Patna in February 1996 at Moin-ul-Haq stadium, between Kenya and Zimbabwe. It had hit the headlines when the then Chief Minister Lalu Prasad had called in his chopper to dry the pitch after rainwater stagnated on it. Sports was never a priority for the Bihar government until the BSSA came into being. After its formation, Bihar has begun to hold sports camps and hold meetings with sports associations, coaches, and district sports officials to further sports overall. Training sites have been selected at Patliputra Sports Complex, Patna for various sports. The work of reconstruction of the indoor stadium is also on. Sports in Bihar also got the boost after a separate Department of Sports was constituted by the state government in January 2024. Earlier sport was part of the Art, Culture and Youth Affairs Department. The sports budget too has increased from ₹30 crore in 2022 to ₹780 crore in 2024. The government says that there is a talent scouting programme across 38,000 schools in Bihar. There are also scholarships, Panchayat sports clubs, and jobs on the cards. Apart from its sports science lab, a coaches development programme, and technical referee development programme have also come up in Bihar in the last two years. Bihar is also introducing this game in Eklavya Residential Sports School. Last year Bihar hosted the Women's Asian Champion Trophy for hockey in Rajgir, in which India won by defeating China. In 2025, Bihar is set to host a series of events, including the Khelo India Para Games, Women's Kabaddi World Cup, and the Asia Rugby U-20 Sevens Championship. It is in this ecosystem that SepakTakraw rises.
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Duplantis sets pole vault meet record in season-opener at ISTAF Indoor in Berlin
BERLIN (AP) — Pole vaulter Armand Duplantis set a new meeting record on his return from a winter break by jumping 6.10 meters at the ISTAF Indoor meet in Berlin on Friday. The Swedish star attempted to beat his own world outdoor record set in Chorzów, Poland last August with two attempts at 6.27, but it was too high this time for the 25-year-old who broke the outdoor record three times last year. The second time was when he won his second Olympic gold medal with a record jump of 6.25 in Paris. He extended the world outdoor record by a centimeter to 6.26 in Poland on Aug. 25. Duplantis needed two attempts to clear 6.10, putting it down to 'rust' in his first competition since September. It's the best indoor mark so far this year. 'It was a good season-opener,' Duplantis said. 'Of course, your first competition, there's always a little bit of rust that you kinda have to knock off, but I think the energy of everybody here really really helped me.' The meet at the 12,000-capacity arena beside the Spree River was a sell-out, and Duplantis was cheered on by, it seemed, everyone at each attempt. 'I try to channel the energy that everybody's giving me as much as I can, but at the end of the day, you don't really think about it,' he said. 'You're just trying to make the bar and you're trying to keep it as simple as possible. But of course, you feel it. You feel the energy. You feel everybody. You feel the crowd and the roar and everything like that. And it's very important. It gives you a lot.' Duplantis, widely known as 'Mondo,' has broken the world outdoor record 10 times in his career — each time by one centimeter — and the world indoor record five times. Emmanouíl Karalís also delighted the fans on Friday by jumping 5.94 on his second attempt for a new Greek record. ___ AP sports: Ciarán Fahey, The Associated Press
Washington Post
14-02-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
Duplantis sets pole vault meet record in season-opener at ISTAF Indoor in Berlin
BERLIN — Pole vaulter Armand Duplantis set a new meeting record on his return from a winter break by jumping 6.10 meters at the ISTAF Indoor meet in Berlin on Friday. The Swedish star attempted to beat his own world outdoor record set in Chorzów , Poland last August with two attempts at 6.27, but it was too high this time for the 25-year-old who broke the outdoor record three times last year. The second time was when he won his second Olympic gold medal with a record jump of 6.25 in Paris. He extended the world outdoor record by a centimeter to 6.26 in Poland on Aug. 25.
Associated Press
14-02-2025
- Sport
- Associated Press
Duplantis sets pole vault meet record in season-opener at ISTAF Indoor in Berlin
BERLIN (AP) — Pole vaulter Armand Duplantis set a new meeting record on his return from a winter break by jumping 6.10 meters at the ISTAF Indoor meet in Berlin on Friday. The Swedish star attempted to beat his own world outdoor record set in Chorzów, Poland last August with two attempts at 6.27, but it was too high this time for the the 25-year-old who broke the outdoor record three times last year. The second time was when he won his second Olympic gold medal with a record jump of 6.25 in Paris. He extended the world outdoor record by a centimeter to 6.26 in Poland on Aug. 25. Duplantis needed two attempts to clear 6.10, putting it down to 'rust' in his first competition since September. It's the best indoor mark so far this year. 'It was a good season-opener,' Duplantis said. 'Of course, your first competition, there's always a little bit of rust that you kinda have to knock off, but I think the energy of everybody here really really helped me.' The meet at the 12,000-capacity arena beside the Spree River was a sell-out, and Duplantis was cheered on by, it seemed, everyone at each attempt. 'I try to channel the energy that everybody's giving me as much as I can, but at the end of the day, you don't really think about it,' he said. 'You're just trying to make the bar and you're trying to keep it as simple as possible. But of course, you feel it. You feel the energy. You feel everybody. You feel the crowd and the roar and everything like that. And it's very important. It gives you a lot.' Duplantis, widely known as 'Mondo,' has broken the world outdoor record 10 times in his career — each time by one centimeter — and the world indoor record five times. Emmanouíl Karalís also delighted the fans on Friday by jumping 5.94 on his second attempt for a new Greek record. ___
