Aiming to identify Olympics medal winners, state-owned gas utility GAIL India Ltd today launched the first edition of India's most ambitious sports talent hunt 'GAIL: The Fastest Indian' in association with Spoment.
Legendary athlete Milkha Singh is the mentor of the talent hunt, which will identify, groom and develop champions athletics keeping in mind 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
"The talent hunt is aimed at finding next Milkha of India and will be conducted across 19 cities reaching over 3,000 schools in the age group of 12 to 14 years. The event is spread into finding best talents in 100 metre, 200 metre and 400 metre race for both, boys and girls," GAIL said in a statement here.
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Winners from their respective cities would be competing to become 'GAIL: The Fastest Indian' on December 14, 2014 at Bengaluru in the finals, where one boy and one girl from each category will be selected.
Winners of the finals of 'GAIL: The Fastest Indian' would be trained by renowned national and international sports trainers, where they would get specialized training needed to compete at the international events.
"The winners will also be given complete scholarship up till their post-graduation so that their focus would continue to remain on medal winning and not have to worry about the future," the statement said.
Speaking on the occasion, The Flying Sikh said, "This project is the need of the hour. It will help find many more Milkha's from the length and breadth of this country."
GAIL's Director (HR) M Ravindran said, "Association with the search for the fastest Indian thus comes naturally for GAIL. Athletics as a sport is a true test of human endurance, redefining the limits we set on ourselves. We are sure that a country of a billion plus has a lot of extraordinary talent that is untapped. What is required is a little help and little faith. We hope to be that help."
According to Darshan M, Director, Spoment, "GAIL-The Fastest Indian is much more than a talent hunt, it's a dream for Indian sports. It is an ambitious attempt to discover, groom and develop an Indian Olympic level athlete. The project would achieve its goal even if few of the kids from this search go on to represent India at the international sports arena."
While the first edition of 'GAIL-The Fastest Indian' will cover 19 cities, it will be expanded over time to reach all 800 districts of the country, to make it the world's largest ever athletics talent competition.
The organizers have tied up with the School Games Federation of India to popularize the event and ensure participation by the maximum number of talented children.
