SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Oct 26: Ranchi and Jamshedpur bagged men’s and women’s team championship titles respectively in the 23rd Jharkhand state table tennis championship held here in the Nehru Sports Complex, Koyla Nagar on Thursday.
In the men’s team championship final, Ranchi defeated Jamshedpur 3-0 while in the women’s team final Jamshedpur defeated Dhanbad district with the same margin(3-0) to bag the title.
In the under-17 boys’ team final, Garhwa district beat Jamshedpur 3-2 while in the girls’ under-17 final Jamshedpur trounced Ranchi 3-1.
Earlier, the Chief Vigilance Officer of Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) Aman Raj, the chief guest, inaugurated the four-day championship in which players from 12 districts are participating.
On the occasion, DIG of CISF Vinay Kajla, Jharkhand Table Tennis Association (JTTA) vice-president Saket Sinha, general secretary and former United Bihar champion Samarjit Singh, joint secretary Shaibal Gupta, Kamlesh Dubey and treasurer Neeraj Kumar were also present.
Secretary Saket Sinha said that in the championship besides men’s and women’s, under-11, under-13, under-15, and under-17 age groups boys’ and girls’ events are also being held.
The district teams that are participating are Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Bokaro, Hazaribagh, Latehar, Palamu, Godda, Deoghar, Dumka, Giridih, Garhwa and host Dhanbad.
On the occasion, the district table tennis association’s Binod Kumar Sinha, Sudipta Mukherjee, Ajay Mahajan, Sanjiv Sagar, and Kripa Shankar were present.
National panel umpires Kiran Bihari Shukla, Anjali Rani, Sandeep Saha, LN Mitra, Ravindra Kumar, Gokul Kumar, Atanu Gupta, and Swati Kumari conducted the matches.