Indian shooters continued their dominance claiming five gold medals on the final day of the Asian Airgun Championships to sign off with a total of 25 medals in Taoyuan, Taipei.
India finished with 16 gold, five silver and four bronze.
On the last day of the competition, Yash Vardhan and Shreya Agrawal bagged three gold medals each.
Yash finished on top in 10m Air Rifle men's junior event. He then clinched the yellow metal in Team competition with his partners -- Keval Prajpati and Aishwary Tomar.
Yash scored 249.5, while Keval and Aishwary shot 247.3 and 226.1 for silver and bronze respectively.
Earlier Vardhan and Shreya combined to win the Mixed Team Rifle junior event.
Shreya won the gold in the 10m Air Rifle women's junior event. She also won the Team gold along with Mehuli Ghosh and Kavi Chakkaravarthy.
Shreya's gold winning 24-shots ended on an impressive 252.5, while Mehuli settled for individual bronze with an effort of 228.3. Kavi was fourth.
Indian shooting's next assignment is scheduled at Al Ain, UAE where the ISSF Shotgun World Cup stage two commences on April 5.
Praful Patel set to be first Indian to be elected in FIFA Executive Council
The All India Football Federation President Praful Patel is set to become first Indian to be elected as a member in the FIFA Executive Council for a four-year term.
According to AIFF sources, Patel is all but sure to be a part of the five FIFA Council members from the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) when the regional body holds its elections in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on April 6.
The election will be for the term 2019 to 2023 and will be held during the 29th AFC Congress.
"Out of eight candidates, five will be selected and Patel is sure to be one of them. He has 90 per cent chance of becoming a FIFA Executive Council member. It will be the first time an Indian will be in the top committee of the world body," a top AIFF official said.
December 6, 2018 was the deadline for the member associations to submit their nominations.
The AFC Electoral Committee carried out eligibility checks on the candidates running for the positions and the FIFA Review Committee conducted eligibility checks on candidates running for FIFA Council positions.
The AFC Electoral Committee will be responsible for all tasks relating to the organisation, running and supervision of the elections.
The FIFA Governance Committee will nominate representatives to monitor the running of the elections for FIFA Council positions.
FIFA Council Members Candidates: Saoud A.Aziz M A Al- Mohannadi (Qatar), Khalid Awad A. Althebity (Saudi Arabia), Mariano V. Araneta, Jr. (Philippines), Chung Mong Gyu (Korea Republic), Du Zhaocai (China PR), Praful Patel (India), Mehdi Taj (IR Iran), Kohzo Tashima (Japan).
Ghosal becomes first Indian male to enter top-10 in PSA rankings
Saurav Ghosal on Monday became the first Indian male squash player to enter the top 10 in the latest PSA world rankings.
Indian women squash players -- Joshna Chinappa and Dipika Pallikal -- had earlier reached top-10 in the world rankings.
Riding on his recent performances, Ghosal has moved up two places to a career-high ranking of 10.
Ghosal made it to the quarter-finals of the 2018-2019 PSA World Championships in Chicago, USA for the first time in his career. He was also a quarter-finalist at the prestigious Grasshopper Cup in Zurich, Switzerland.
Egypt's world champion Ali Farag, meanwhile, maintains his position at the top of the ladder.
In the women's rankings, Joshna continued to be the best-ranked Indian, moving up to the 15th position.
IIT KGP to develop training module for Gopichand Academy
Country's premier technology institute, IIT Kharagpur has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy to develop research and training module for the trainees of the Hyderabad-based sports facility.
"The thrust areas of the collaboration include developing training programs by IIT Kharagpur focusing on happiness and well being for enhancing the quality of performance and resilience," a statement from IIT-KGP said.
A delegation from IIT Kharagpur led by Director Prof P P Chakrabarti met Gopichand in New Delhi on March 30 in this regard.
"Players and coaches from PGBA will benefit from these programs. Further the coaches will also be trained on how to use that knowledge while training players."
Under the collaboration, IIT-KGP will also set up a sports academy in collaboration with Gopichand.
"I am also very happy to know that a sports academy is coming up at IIT Kharagpur and looking forward to contributing to its development," Gopichand said in the statement.
Prof Chakrabarti added: "The academy would promote collaborative research related to happiness in sports in general and badminton particular and science and technology in sports training.
"The scope would also include joint monitoring and use of materials used in general and badminton in particular by IIT Kharagpur and Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy."
The collaboration is spearheaded by S S Rekhi, US-based entrepreneur and alumnus of IIT Kharagpur, who funded the Rekhi Centre for Science of Happiness at IIT Kharagpur and his company R Systems is the sponsor of Gopichand Badminton Academy.
