Jamshedpur, Jan. 29: Talim Ansari, a 13-year-old boy from Dhatkidih, has become the first from Jharkhand to clinch a medal in climbing sports at national level.
A student of DBMS Lilliput School in Kadma, Ansari won the silver medal in sub-junior category (boys) at the 21th National Sports Climbing Championship held in New Delhi in December 2015, which had participants from all over the country.
Ansari has been training at Tata Steel Adventure Foundation (TSAF) for the last one year under Babulal.
Talim was felicitated for his performance at JRD Tata Sports Complex, where he was given a silver medal, certificate and Rs. 9000 as cash prize by Manik Banerjee, chairman, Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF) East Zone Committee, in the presence of Bachendri Pal, chief, TSAF, Hemant Gupta, manager, TSAF, mountaineer Premlata Agarwal and others.
Elated with his performance, Tamil Ansari said, �I want to go a long way climb Mount Everest and bring many more medals for my state and country.�
Talking to media persons on Friday, Talim, whose father passed away when he was very young, said, �My mother has suffered a lot and she somehow manages to pay for my studies and from now on I will focus on the game along with the studies and become an international level climber and give all comforts of life to my mother.�
Bachendri Pal said, �Talim has made a great start to his career and with a silver medal in nationals at the tender age of 13 is excellent. TSAF has been keeping eyes on the boy and would promote him to excel in major tournaments to come.�
Manik Banerjee said this is a historic moment for the sports climbing fraternity of Jharkhand as Talim is the first from state to win a medal at nationals.
�Jharkhand is a potential state to carry forward adventure sports and also rendered his thanks to Tata Steel for showing a lot of enthusiasm in promoting such sports in Jamshedpur and with likes of Bachendri madam at TSAF, Jharkhand will shine in sports climbing in the coming years,� said Banerjee, adding, �Sports climbing has been proposed for demonstration in 2016 Rio Olympics and there is a bright chance that it might be included in 2020 Olympics.�
Apart from Talim, five climbers from Jamshedpur namely Babulal Rawat, Kumari Khusboo, Amit, Manish and Jyoti participated in the national sports meet.