Bhubaneswar: Odisha has bagged the Sportstar Aces Award for the Best State for the Promotion of Sports for the third consecutive year.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has received the award at special ceremony held here on Sunday.
The Odisha Government has been honoured for its efforts towards the promotion of sport both within the state and in the country.
Under the leadership of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Odisha has taken purposeful strides in the last decade to strengthen its credentials as a sports hub with world-class infrastructure across disciplines.
Over the last decade, the eastern Indian state has been at the forefront of hosting major sports events, sponsoring national teams, creating a number of high performance centres and strengthening its grassroots programmes.
This is the Odisha’s third Sportstar Aces honour in a row, having won the award in 2019 and 2020 as well.
Odisha has made sports a priority sector with investment swelling from Rs 28 crore in 2010- 11 to Rs 301 crore in 2020-21.
Hockey has found a paradise in Odisha, which has hosted Champions Trophy 2014, Hockey World League 2017, Men’s Hockey World Cup 2018, FIH Men’s Series Finals 2019, Olympic Hockey Qualifiers 2019, and the Pro League in 2020.
The State’s rise to global prominence started with the 22nd Asian Athletics Championships 2017. Odisha is also the first state to sponsor the National Hockey Teams, for a period of five years. It recently, also signed agreement with Rugby India to sponsor the national Rugby teams till 2023. It is also the first state to support the team Odisha FC in the ISL.
In the last few years, Odisha has hosted a variety of international events, including the 2019 Hero Super Cup, ISL 2019-2020, Asia Rugby 7s U-18 Girls Championship, Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships 2019, and the Khelo India UniversityGames 2020.
Besides hosting marquee events and developing infrastructure for key disciplines such as Athletics, Hockey, and Football, Odisha signed MoUs with leading corporates and eminent sport personalities in November 2018 to set up High Performance Centres (HPCs) in disciplines where Odisha does well and has the potential to excel.
The Sportstar Aces Awards is presented by India’s reputed sports magazine Sportstar.
The curtains were raised on the 2021 edition of the Sportstar Aces Awards with a star-studded opening episode on Saturday.
Members of the jury – Sunil Gavaskar, MM Somaya, Bhaichung Bhutia, Viswanathan Anand, Anjali Bhagwat and Aparna Popat- take the audience through the selection process for the awards this year.