Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (SP)

Mangalore, Jul 15: P T Usha, nicknamed ‘Payyoli Express’ after her capacity to run long distances without getting tired, visited the city on Sunday July 14. She was in the city briefly while on her way to Mysore to lead the athletes being trained by her to the synthetic stadium built by Infosys Technologies at Mysore.

Speaking after examining the synthetic track recently laid at Mangala Stadium here, Usha expressed her happiness about the stadium. She expressed willingness to bring the athletes being coached by her to this stadium for training on a future date. Expressing the opinion that every district should be equipped with at least one synthetic track for enabling skilled athletes to improve their performances, she said this will add to the performance of India in international events.

“Athletes will not automatically emerge if the government provides basic infrastructure for their training. The talented athletes need to have strong determination to excel in their respective fields,” she felt.

Giving her opinion on local athlete, Ashwini Kakkunji’s sudden fall from grace, she advised younger athletes to learn from minor mistakes, and not to allow their spirits to be dampened by  such episodes, but to get over them and emerge stronger through steely determination.

Dakshina Kannada district deputy commissioner, N Prakash, who accompanied Usha during her visit to the stadium, said that the work on laying of this track has been conducted beautifully. He added that the district administration aims at completing other pending work here out of contingency funds. Parshwanath of the department of youth services and sports department was present on the occasion.