Bhubaneswar: With just hours to go for the first-of-its-kind ‘Ekamra Sports Literary Festival’ (ESLF) to get underway Friday morning, sports aficionados here are already brimming with ecstasy. The arrival of two-time Olympic bronze medallist former Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson and former Australian hockey midfielder Brent Livermore in the city Thursday afternoon has only helped to intensify the passion.
“This is my second visit to India, but the first to Odisha. It’s an honour for me to be speaking at the festival amidst many other dignitaries. More so, I am pretty excited about what kind of questions they are going to ask me and see where my position is,” Johnson, who will give a talk on ‘The Dirtiest race in history’, said upon his arrival at the Biju Patnaik International Airport.
“I am going to share some of my knowledge about training and when to pick up at the right time and the technicalities an athlete should possess in the field.”
Livermore, who has lots of memories about playing against India, is pretty much excited to be reuniting with his old rivals. “I have lots of memories playing against the likes of Dilip Tirkey and Dhanraj Pillay. To be able to share the same stage with them at the ESLF and speaking about our rivalries and experiences together is going to be too much fun,” Livermore said.
Livermore is also the coach of the New South Wales hockey team that played an exhibition match against the Odisha XI at the Kalinga Stadium Thursday.
Meanwhile, former middle-range runner Santhi Soundarajan, Bharat Sudaresan (author of ‘The Dhoni Touch’) and Gopi Shankar, an Indian equal rights and indigenous rights activist, also arrived in the city later in the evening to be a part of the ESLF.
Santhi was stripped of her 2006 Asian Games silver medal after failing a sex verification test disputing her eligibility to participate in the women’s competitions. Victim ‘gender and caste discriminations’, Shanti told Orissa POST that the Sports Authority of Tamil Nadu initially didn’t allow her to participate in Ekamra Sports Literary Festival, but had to succumb to her deterimation and the pressure of the organisers to allow her to speak her mind.
“Finally, I am here after so many struggles. I am greatly honoured that the organisers invited me to this event. I am really excited to share the plights I have faced and meet the other greats of the sports and literary worlds,” Santi said.
Meanwhile, the organisers informed that the former Pakistani fast bowler Wasin Akram and former India hockey skipper Vasudevan Baskaran won’t be able to attend the event. While Akram’s application to travel to India has not been cleared by the new Pakistani government, Baskaran has to be by his mother’s side who is not keeping well. Baskaran will be replaced by his former teammate Ajit Pal Singh, who will play Nostradamus with other hockey legends.