Bhubaneswar, Jun 4 (IANS): Internationally renowned sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik has won gold medal in people's choice prize at world championship festival of sand sculpting Russe, 2016, Bulgaria for his sand sculpture "Drugs Kill Sports".

Sudarsan, who won the medal on Friday, has got highest vote from visitors, said a statement on Saturday.

"I am very happy that my sand art got the gold medal. I have created the two faces -- one is of Lance Armstrong and another is Maria Sharapova, the two iconic players who were mired in the drug controversy, thus bringing bad name for themselves and the entire sports world," said Sudarsan in a statement.

"I wanted to convey the message to the entire sports fraternity to uphold the inspirational stature of sports. Let the spirit of the game prevail," he added.

He said modern day sports supplemented by advanced technologies have reached a new level of competition throwing new challenges to all stakeholders such as sports personnel, organisers and regulators.

One such unsolicited issue is usage of performance enhancing drugs by sports personnel.

"My sand art 'Drugs Kill Sports' is an awareness creating sculpture," said Sudarsan.

It is an awareness sand sculpture to uphold the sanctity, richness and sports, as an ever cherished saga of entertainment source, in high esteem. This championship was started from May 26 that continued till June 3.

Total 10 artists participated from around the world in this championship. The topic of the competition was 'Sport World and Olympic Symbols' and the height of the sculpture was 2 metre.

So far, Padma Shri awardee sand artist Sudarsan has participated in more than 50 international sand sculpture championships and festivals around the world and won many prizes.

His sand sculptures are based on social issues and current topics.

Recently, he won gold medal in Moscow for creating sand sculpture on Peace and Nonviolence.