The first ever five day National Wushu Coaching course for coaches was inaugurated at the Special Area Games auditorium of Sports Authority of India(SAI) at the Khuman Lampak Sports Complex here on Monday.
The seminar is organized under the aegis of Wushu Association of India in collaboration with SAI at National Sports Academy and Manipur Olympic Hall both located at the Khuman Lampak Sports Complex from May 21- 25.
Youth Affairs and Sports Secretary Bobby Waikhom, Regional Director Francis Marwein of SAI North Eastern Regional Centre (NERC) Imphal, Registrar National Sports University K Radhakumar and functionaries of the Wushu Association of India, and five Wushu experts from China and others attended the formal inauguration of the seminar.
SAI NERC Imphal centre initiated the seminar after getting the support from the central authorities in order to achieve the target of winning gold medals in Asian and Games other International competitions, according to SAI officials. Altogether around 120 wushu coaches representing 33 states and services from across the country are taking part in the seminar.
“We’ve produced world and Asian champions in junior category,” says M Premkumar, a wushu coach in Imphal. “So we’re targeting to produce Asian champions (including Olympians if the game is introduced in Olympics) in senior category.”
The country has more than 15000 wushu players including 500 from Manipur alone after the game of Wushu started to flourish in the country in the late 1980’s and have successfully conducted 26 senior National Championships and other sub-junior and junior championships so far.
The game was officially recognized by Ministry of Youth Affairs and Indian Olympic Association in the year 1993.Meanwhile, Manipur is India’s number one state in producing eminent wushu players and have produced India’s first three Arjuna Awardee in Wushu-W Sandhyarani (2011),M Bimoljit (2012) and Y Sanathoi (2014) in this discipline till now.
Other Indian states after Manipur include Haryana, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh while Manipur is followed by states like Assam and Mizoram in North East India.
The coaching will be conducted by Professor Zeng Fang of Chinese Wushu Association Professors from China namely- Li Qiaoling of Beijing Sports University, Zhang Xiao Ou of Chengdu Institute of Physical Education, Qin Rancong of Guangxi Wushu teamnd Liang Yadong of Wahan Institute of Physical Education.
