Imphal, January 19: With the aim of producing world-class weightlifters from the region specially for the forthcoming Beijing Olympics 2008 weightlifting associations of northeast put their head together on January 16 at Guwahati and formed Northeast India Weightlifting Association.

President of the newly formed body Sunil Elangbam of Manipur told WWW.E-PAO.NET that the officials of weightlifting associations of Mizoram, Tripura, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur attended the meeting.

The meeting after threadbare discussion on the need of having a common weightlifting forum to propagate and popularize the game in the region resolved to form Northeast India Weightlifting Association, he said.

The meeting also unanimously elected Sunil Elangbam who is also joint secretary of Indian Weightlifting Federation (IWF) and secretary of Manipur Weightlifting Association as the president of the newly formed NE body.

Baba Jyoti Goswami of Assam Weightlifting Association was elected as secretary while S Manikanta of Manipur was elected treasurer.

Apart from forming the NE association the meeting also resolved to form Northeast Referee Forum.

On the objective of forming Northeast India Weightlifting Association, Sunil Elengbam said the body would coordinate with IWF to develop the game in the region and nurture young talents from the region collectively.

As the WFI is presently working by dividing four regions namely eastern, northern, southern and western in which the northeast region is included in the eastern region thereby causing lack of coordination between state associations of the region with the WFI.

This lack of coordination is one of the obstacles in developing the game in the region, Sunil said.

Moreover, state associations of the region could not actively play a part in the organizational matter of WFI.

The newly form body will look forward on these issues, he said.

He also said that the newly formed body would pursue WFI for affiliation.

Saying northeast state has a huge potential of producing world-class lifters because of our physical structure (anatomy) and food habit Sunil further said Indian Olympic Association (IOA) knowing this fact is eying most of the lifters for the forthcoming Beijing Olympics must come from the region.

Keeping this in mind, weightlifting associations of the region after several rounds of communication decided to sit together and chalk out strategy leading to the formation of the NE body, Sunil added.

The association will organize championships in the region on regular basis as part of promotion and developing the game.

The first championship will be held in Tripura most probably during the month of April, Sunil said adding that it's (NE India Weightlifting Association) first general council meeting will be held on February 19 at Guwahati in coincidence with 16th senior national weightlifting championship.

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