After postponing the games twice, Haryana Chief Minister ML Khattar announced that the Khelo India Youth Games-2021 will be held in the state from June 4 to June 13. Khattar made the announcement during a meeting of the organising and coordination committee of the games and Union Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports Anurag Thakur Tuesday.
The games, which were allocated to Haryana, were earlier scheduled to happen in October-November last year before they were postponed to February this year owing to the Covid-19 pandemic. The games, which are to be held in 25 sports disciplines including five indigenous sports disciplines, will be held in Shahbad, Ambala, Chandigarh, Panchkula and Delhi. More than 8,500 players are expected to participate in the games.
Khattar informed that the mascot and the logo of the games will be launched in Panchkula on May 8. He further said that two to three multipurpose halls, synthetic track and athletics track have been constructed for the conduct of the games.
The Haryana chief minister also mentioned that the work on the badminton hall at Government Women’s College, Sector 14, Panchkula, has been completed and the construction work of the astro-turf hockey stadium at Panchkula and Shahbad will be completed soon.
Thakur said the Khelo India Youth Games should be held in a way that there is more discussion about Haryana in the country. The Union minister also said Covid-19 rules should be fully followed during the games.
While Punjab had hosted the national games in 2011, this will be for the first time that Haryana will host the multi-games event. The third edition of the Khelo India Youth Games were held in January-February last year and more than 10,000 players and officials were part of the event. While Haryana had topped the medal tally with a total of 108 medals in the first edition of the games held in Delhi in 2018, the state finished at the second spot in the last two editions of the games.
