Hyderabad's sports heroes honoured at glittering gala
Arjuna awardees Anup Yama (skating), Neeta Dadwe (kabaddi) were among the galaxy of achievers who were honoured.
Hyderabad: Yesteryear sports stars of Hyderabad were honoured at the City of Heroes function organised by Ethic Sports Foundation on Saturday evening in an initiative aimed at making people aware of their legacy and contribution towards sports in the City.
The event was organised in partnership with Sports Authority of Telangana State, Olympic Association of Telangana, Federation of Telangana & Andhra Pradesh Chambers of Commerce & Industry and Press Club Hyderabad.
In the past, though Hyderabad has produced a lot of talents from the football field but it has also made a great contributions in other sports too which includes badminton (Pullela Gopichand, Jwala Gutta, Saina Nehwal, P. V. Sindhu), basketball, cricket (V.V.S. Laxman, Md Azharuddin, Shivlal Yadav), hockey (N. Mukesh Kumar and Edward Alloysius), tennis (Sania Mirza), cycling (Maxwell Trevor), boxing (Jayaram), volleyball (Mulini Reddy, Manoj Reddy), shooting (Gagan Narang) and many more.
The discussion moderated by football columnist Novy Kapadia recounted India’s Golden era in football in which Hyderabad footballers had an immense contribution. In the 1950s, as many as nine players from the city were part of the Indian team.
Arjuna awardees Anup Yama (skating), Neeta Dadwe (kabaddi) were among the galaxy of achievers who were honoured. Also present were former Indian football captain Victor Amalraj, Shabbir Ali, rowing coach Ismail Baig.