Odisha's Kalinga Stadium to host Intercontinental Cup, Inter-State Athletics on same dates

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Kolkata, June 5: Odisha sports department has made all the necessary arrangements for hosting the Hero Intercontinental Cup and Inter-States Athletics Championships at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneshwar despite the dates of the events overlapping on two days between June 14 and 18.

Odisha's Sports and Youth Department secretary Vineel Krishna told myKhel that both events will take place on the same day at the Kalinga Stadium without any hindrance as the timings of the tournaments have been adjusted to ensure no overlapping of schedule.

Intercontinental Cup is an international football event where India will host Lebanon, Vanuatu and Mongolia in a round-robin tournament from June 9 as Odisha plays home to the national football team for the first time. The final of the event is slated on June 18 as Igor Stimac and his men prepare for the Asia Cup later this year. All the matches will be played in the evening.

Inter-States Athletics Championships, on the other hand, traditionally have morning and evening sessions and are an important event in the Indian athletics season. The AFI event is an annual national meet (slated on June 14-19 this year) is serving as the qualifying event for the Asian Games 2023.

The importance of both tournaments is essentially the reason why their respective federations were not eager to postpone the event but Odisha sports officials managed to convince the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) to tweak Inter-States' schedule.

"We committed to both AIFF (All India Football Federation) and AFI to host the events and tried that dates don't collide," said Odisha sports senior official Vineel Krishna. "But they both have their own deadlines to meet so postponing any of the events was not an option.

"With the desired infrastructure in place, the solution we came down to was that the there will be no evening sessions of athletics on June 14 and 18 as AFI agreed to make the tournament a six-day event to accommodate the evening sessions on June 19."

The Indian football team has already reached the state's capital for the Intercontinental Cup and is training at the newly-constructed Bhubaneswar Football Academy, which was inaugurated by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik last month.

Both the tournaments will feature hoards of international athletes with Indian football team captain Sunil Chhetri in the limelight as the 38-year-old chases his record 86th international goal. In athletics, local star sprinters Srabani Nanda and Amiya Mallick are expected to compete among hoards of Indian track and field athletes.

Odisha, known for its love for hockey, has the experience of hosting several international and national sporting events, including the Hockey World Cup 2018 and 2022, FIH Pro League, and Asian Athletics Championships 2017 among others. It has also been appreciated for erecting several world-class high-performance centres for various Olympic sports.