Union Minister of Sports and External Affairs Kiren Rijiju has stated that the government will try its best to try and include Kabbadi in the 2024 Olympic Games set to be organised in Paris.
“As a Sports Minister, I am very excited and have always thought of how to promote indigenous sports in a big way. Kabaddi is a perfect example of how an indigenous sport has grown successfully,” Rijiju said while he was on air, speaking on KBD Live programme being broadcasted on Star Sports Network.
“This I feel is the beginning of the sports culture that we envisaged for India which is now becoming a reality. We will definitely push hard for Kabaddi to be part of the next Olympics as we are a billion-plus powerful nation and so for this to become possible, we will have to put all our efforts together, but I am very confident about it,” he went on to add.
Notably, Kabaddi is part of the Asian Games but has not been included in the Olympics until now. At the Asian Games held in 2018 in Indonesia, Iran became the first country ever other than India to win gold medal in Kabaddi. While the Indian men’s team had won the bronze medal, the Indian women’s team was beaten by Iran and had to settle for silver.