Early Times Report
NEW DELHI, May 28: 'Faster, Higher, Stronger', goes the Olympic motto. But one sport is hoping to add a bit of "stillness, and balance" to the movement.
Yoga, the ancient Indian practice for mental and physical well-being propagated for centuries by spiritual gurus, is hoping to also become an eye-catching global sport -- Yogasana -- in the next one decade.
The audacious plan includes being big enough to be a medal sport in the 2036 Olympics, which India is hoping to host in Ahmedabad.
"But even if the Games were to be held in Timbuktu, we are working to ensure that Yogasana is a medal sport in 2036," World Yogasana vice president Udit Sheth asserted in an interview to PTI, referring in jest to the fifth century city in Mali that is also a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Yogasana's global standing as a sport is gradually rising and it has made it to this year's Asian Games as a demonstration sport. Sheth said the 2032 Olympics would be the next pit stop as a demo sport.
The stake-holders of the sport, which include the government of India, are eyeing an upswing in momentum with the first ever Yogasana World Championship featuring 75 countries from June 4 to 8 in Ahmedabad, the city that has become the national sporting hub thanks to its Olympic ambitions.
It has already bagged the 2030 Commonwealth Games where Yogasana will be one of the two indigenous disciplines that India has proposed.
Sheth is upbeat about the prospects even though World Yogasana, with 40 affiliates, is still some distance from the minimum 50 from at least three continents that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) would demand before considering recognition.
The 47-year-old Sheth is the Founder and Managing Director of SE TransStadia, a sports infrastructure company that came into existence in 2009. He is not new to sport and its vagaries, having been the owner of the Mumbai franchise in the now defunct World Series of Boxing (WSB).
In World Yogasana, he is one of the three deputies to the body's head Baba Ramdev, a renowned yoga guru who has branched into every aspect of India's thriving wellness industry that includes food products, and even medicines. |
