The fifteenth version of the FIH Hockey Mens World Cup is all set to kickstart in Odisha in simply six days.
With every passing day, the anticipation across the occasion retains rising and it’s just about seen to all people.
The mineral-rich state’s relationship with hockey dates again a number of many years. Odisha has produced over 100 national-level gamers for the Indian group, together with Dilip Tirkey, Ignace Tirkey, Lazarus Barla, Jyoti Sunita Kullu, and Sunita Lakra, amongst many others.
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The current Indian males’s and girls’s nationwide squads additionally embrace many Odisha gamers, together with Amit Rohidas, Shilanand Lakra, Deep Grace Ekka, Nilam Xess and Namita Toppo.
Over the previous twenty years, the Odisha authorities has additionally actively and closely invested in worldwide hockey, internet hosting numerous large-scale multi-nation occasions just like the FIH World Cup, FIH Men’s Junior World Cup, FIH Series Finals, FIH World League, FIH Champions Trophy and the FIH Hockey Pro League.
Before the beginning of the mega sporting spectacle, right here’s a take a look at the venues the place the world’s greatest hockey groups will compete for the coveted trophy.
Kalinga Stadium, Bhubaneswar
The Kalinga Stadium is likely one of the two venues for the FIH Men’s World Cup 2023. The stadium will get its identify �Kalinga’ from the historic area within the east of India of the identical identify, which encompasses the modern-day state of Odisha in entirety, together with components of two different Indian states: Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
The Kalinga Hockey Stadium is part of the multi-purpose advanced collectively known as Kalinga International Stadium, which additionally contains an eight-lane artificial athletics monitor, numerous high-performance centres, a soccer stadium, an Olympic swimming facility and many extra.
It homes assets for athletics, soccer, hockey, tennis, desk tennis, basketball, volleyball, sport climbing and swimming.
The residents of Bhubaneswar are well-known within the hockey world for the huge numbers they end up in for worldwide hockey matches hosted within the metropolis.
Many gamers from numerous hockey-playing nations additionally describe Bhubaneswar as their favourite place to play hockey as a result of environment created by the crowds.
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The Kalinga Hockey Stadium has change into a worldwide hub for hockey for almost a decade now. The stadium had hosted its first main worldwide event when it was awarded the internet hosting rights to the Champions Trophy in 2014.
The success of the occasion prompted additional motion, because the 2017 Hockey World League Finals noticed the most effective eight groups on the earth converge in Odisha to play in entrance of a packed viewers. A 12 months later, the Kalinga Stadium took centre stage as soon as once more because the premier males’s hockey event, the FIH Hockey Men’s World Cup, was performed in Bhubaneswar.
Since then, the Kalinga Stadium has been the house of the Indian hockey group, with not solely the lads’s and girls’s groups coaching within the stadium, however it’s also the place they’ve performed their residence matches in the course of the FIH Hockey Pro League.
In 2021, the FIH Men’s Junior World Cup was additionally performed within the Kalinga Stadium.
Birsa Munda International Hockey Stadium, Rourkela
The Birsa Munda International Hockey Stadium, in of Rourkela, is likely one of the two venues for the FIH Men’s World Cup 2023.
The stadium is called after Birsa Munda, a tribal freedom fighter and folks hero who spearheaded the millenarian motion that arose within the Bengal Presidency within the late nineteenth century, making him an vital determine within the historical past of the Independence motion.
Rourkela is likely one of the greatest cities in Odisha, well-known for being residence to numerous industrial institutions, together with one in all India’s first metal crops.
The metropolis additionally occupies a central place within the Sundargarh district, within the jap hockey belt of Odisha, which has produced scores of prime hockey abilities for India, together with former India skipper Dilip Tirkey, who’s probably the most capped participant within the historical past of Indian males’s hockey, and at the moment serves because the president of Hockey India.
The intention is for the stadium to offer a much-needed enhance to the hockey infrastructure within the district, paving the best way for future stars who can get entry to worldwide customary amenities inside their very own area.
The Birsa Munda International Hockey Stadium has been constructed on 15 acres of land on the Biju Patnaik University of Technology campus in Rourkela, which is sometimes called the “Steel City of Odisha”.
The stadium will now replace the Kalinga Hockey Stadium as the largest stadium in Odisha, with a seating capacity of 21,000.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 employees and is printed from a syndicated news company feed)
