Vijayapura: The historic Vijayapura City will hold a two-day State level road cycling championship on October 21 and 22. The City is hosting the state-level event for the first time.
Speaking to the media persons here on Monday October 4 Raju Biradar, State President of Karnataka State Amateur Cycling Association said that though the City has already hosted mountain biking and track events, it is for the first time, a road championship is being held.
Stating that it was his desire to hold the event in Vijayapura, he decided to organise the event here after taking charge as the President of the Association.
“Since I am a native of Vijayapura, I wanted the event to be held in my hometown. Fortunately, after becoming State President, I got the event to be held here itself,” he said.
He further said that over 250 cyclists of the State are expected to participate in the championship and a total of 18 events will be held for the cyclists of different age groups. Around 50 staff will be joining for the event from the organisation.
“While the government offers only Rs. 40,000 as funds for the event, we need at least Rs. 6 to Rs 7 lakh. Therefore, we are requesting the donors to donate the money for the event. So far, we have got encouraging responses from the donors, and hopefully in this event also, they will offer financial support,” he said.
Claiming that Vijayapura District has emerged as a hub for producing national and international cyclists in the State, Biradar said that the district has produced over 300 cyclists in the last three decades.
Over 25 cyclists of the District have participated in international events, five of them have also secured medals.
The association will select around 40 cyclists in the State-level event, who will be then participating in the national level event to be held in Krukshetra in Haryana in November.
Biradar said that some 30 cyclists of the District have already been selected for the State Level mountain biking championship to be held in Pune for four days from October 28.
On the occasion, he urged the District Administration to declare any particular road stretch of the length of 10 kilometres as a no-traffic road for three hours every day in the early morning.
Regretting that at least three cyclists have lost their lives in the road accidents during practice, and several of them have sustained injuries, he said “to avoid such accidents and for the safety of our cyclists, the government should declare any stretch as traffic free for at least three hours in the morning.’
With regard to the pending Velodrome project, he said that the District Administration has constituted an expert committee to list the technical issues and solutions so that the project can be completed as early as possible.
Office-bearers Pradeep Rathod, Sanjeev Padatare, Manjunath Rathod, Santosh Kumar Katakanahalli and Srikant Math were present.
