Chandigarh, June 19
Four Panchkula eves have made their city proud by representing India in the 10th Asian Roller Skating Championship, which concluded on June 15 at Akita, Japan . Indian women won bronze medal. These four girls Chandita Kamboj, Suruchi Chandel, Renuka and Smriti Chandel along with other members of the team arrived here last evening. Chandita Kamboj is a Class X student of Blue Bird School, Sector 16, Panchkula, and has earlier taken part in the World Women Roller Hockey meet and in the last 9th Asian Skating meet held at Chinese Taipei. She disclosed that the winner of this meet in the women section was Japan while the runner-up was Chinese Taipei. India gave a tough fight to Chinese Taipei losing 2-7 and 1-4 in two matches. She said the matches were played in the Indoor rink and the surface was faster than what they practiced here in India. She said they were being trained here in the Blue Bird Coaching Centre by the Haryana Sport Department coach, Mr AD Sharma.
Another girl Suruchi Chandel, who has passed Class X from Satluj Public School, Sector 4, Panchkula, has also played for the second time in the Asian Skating meet. She said the sports complex where the matches were held was a huge one and it had hosted 2001 world games. Suruchi said Japanese girls were better than Indians in terms of speed and stamina but she hoped that in the next Asian meet they would improve their performance. Renuka, a Class IX student of Bhavan Vidyala, Sector 15, Panchkula, whose was this maiden International meet, was the only Indian to score a goal against a foreign team. Renuka said she got the inspiration to join the roller hockey from her cousin Priyanka, who is herself an international skater.
Fourth girl Smriti Chandel, now a Class X student of Satluj Public School, Sector 4, who also played in the international meet, said she was much inspired by the Japanese eves. Smriti said she would now make all out efforts to prepare for the world women roller hockey meet to be held in Germany in September,. She was all praise for the Italian coach
Baraldi Aldo, who coached the Indian team.
Mr AD Sharma, skating coach who trained all the four girls, was happy at the performance shown by her trainees. He said Panchkula had now become a hub of roller hockey and only last month Haryana won the senior women title in the national skating meet. Haryana also won the overall championship in skating.
