Uttarakhand women's rugby team set sights on winning gold medal in National Games

Dehradun, Jan 21 (PTI) Barely four years after their first foray into the sport, Uttarakhand's women’s rugby team players are determined to make a strong impression when the National Games get underway here on January 28.

The Uttarakhand team is leaving no stone unturned in order to prepare themselves for the competition which will also have teams from Odisha, Bihar, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

The team has been training here at the Maharana Pratap Sports College premises for the tournament under coach Yashwant Singh, who is also the general secretary of the Uttarakhand Rugby Association.

Going back to where it all began, Yashwant told PTI that several years ago a few girls would watch him and a few others play on the riverbank of the Solani river in Roorkee.

Among them was 20-year-old Saloni, who took a liking for the sport but the coach, along with his friends Ayush Kumar and Akash Singh, had to work really hard to convince her father, an autorickshaw driver, to allow her to play.

While there were only a few girls to begin with, gradually the association was able to add more players until the team was formed in 2021.

Saloni's career graph, meanwhile, kept soaring and she was part of the Indian team which grabbed the bronze medal in the 2023 Rugby Sevens competition.

The 19-year-old Shivani Pal is another key member of the side. Hailing from a small village of Puhana near Roorkee, her father is a labour and her mother is a housewife.

Despite their humble beginnings, her parents never stopped Shivani, the eldest among six siblings, from dreaming about making a career in sports.

Shivani was also inspired to play the tough sport of rugby after watching a South Indian action movie as she also likes being aggressive. PTI DPT DDV AH AH