Bhubaneswar: With the technical support of Athletic Federation of India (AFI), the Sports and Youth Services Department of Odisha Government relayed a new synthetic track to host the 65th National Inter State Senior Athletics Championship, scheduled to be held at Kalinga Stadium from 24-28 June 2026.
Altogether 637 athletes from across 26 states will participate in the five-day long national meet, which will be a qualifying event for the Asian Games schedule to be held later this year in Japan.
The Middle East war situation has created hindrance for the procurement of materials. However, the main stadium synthetic track relayed and the practice ground is yet to fully complete. The Sports and Youth Services Department Director Vijay Yeddula said “The M/S Shiv Naresh Sports Private Limited company got the job, with a cost of Rs 4 crore. Yes, the war situation affected the transportation of the raw materials, the main ground for the events completed in 30 days”.
The Kalinga Stadium main ground synthetic track was first laid in 1998 and it was re-laid after 19 years for the 22ndAsian Athletic Championship in the year 2017. This is for the second time the relaying procedure started in the last week of April, During Asian Athletic championship 2017 the stadium got its first relaying synthetic track. In the last 9 year many national and also international athletics events were conducted on the track.
An International athlete of the State said “Odisha is always having a reputation of making international standard sports infrastructure in our country, the Kalinga Stadium synthetic track has already crossed its timeline. The new track will bust the performance of the athletes”.
