Indians fans will get to witness some high-flying acrobatic moves of the world's best Sepaktakraw players when the country hosts the sport's biggest event, the Super Series, for the first time in the month of August.
The Sepaktakraw Super Series will be held at the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex here from August 29 to September 1.
"The sport is rapidly gaining popularity all over the world. We thank the Sepaktakraw Federation of India for organising the first leg of Super Series here in New Delhi," General Secretary of International Sepaktakraw Federation, Dato Abdul Hamil Kader said.
In the men's event, 12 nations including Japan, USA and South Korea would be battling it out for supremacy, also known as kick volleyball, while the women's competition will have eight countries.
Points accumulated in the four different legs of the super series will decide the champion for the year 2013. The Thailand team had won the Super Series last year.
Sepaktakraw, which was first introduced as a demonstration sport in the 1982 Asian Games held in Delhi, has been on the rise in the country and the Indian federation, SFI, conducts the national championships at various levels.
"Our team is currently practising at a camp in Hyderabad. In our last nationals, 27 state teams had participated in the seniors' event. Our players have also done well at the international level," SFI General Secretary, Yogender Singh Dahiya said.
In the King's Cup International Sepaktakraw tournament held at Bangkok in 2009, India won six medals, including a gold.
"There are 45 nations including America, Europe and Africa who are playing Sepaktakraw. We are targetting to first introduce the sport in the Commonwealth Games then think about Olympics," Abdul Kader said.
