INDIA'S NEW SPORTING ARENA

For a little over a week, ace rifle and pistol shooters from across the globe along with the sport’s top administrators will congregate in Bhopal for the ISSF World Cup that kicks off on March 20.

- Rahul Noronha

The prestigious International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) tournament will be among a series of national and international sports events that Madhya Pradesh has hosted over the past two years.

Be it the pistol shooting, equestrian and women’s boxing nationals towards the end of 2022, or the women’s ITF (International Tennis Federation) tournament in January and the Khelo India Youth Games—that saw nearly 6,000 young athletes from across the country take part in 27 disciplines— in February, capital Bhopal has been buzzing with sports activities. Then, there were the national canoe sprint championship (March 2022), men’s hockey national meet (April) and junior athletics nationals (September) among the events on the city’s sports calendar last year.

Backed by government funds and state-of-the-art facilities, Madhya Pradesh—and Bhopal in particular—is fast turning into India’s sports hub. Several sports academies and stadiums have come up here in the past decade. Besides nurturing budding athletes, they have given the state a platform to host national and international events.

Inaugurating the Youth Games at Bhopal’s Tatya Tope Stadium on January 30, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had promised that “there will be no shortage of funds to promote the state’s sporting talent” while announcing Rs 5 lakh for each medal winner from MP. In the 2023-24 state budget unveiled on March 1, the allocation for sports stood at Rs 738 crore, over three times the Rs 235 crore allocated last year. (Though the sports budget for 2022-23 was later bumped up to Rs 476 crore to hold the bigticket Youth Games.)