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SRINAGAR: The India’s first ever snow sculpture team (Callisto) reaches United States to participate in the 27th annual Breckenridge International Snow Sculpture Championships which was kicked off today in United States.
The Team India is comprises of four members as per the championship rules. The four artists/snow sportsmen to represent team India are Zahoor Din Lone, Sunil Kushwaha, Ravi Prakash, and Mridul Kumar Upadhyay. This is for the first time when a team from India is participating in any international snow sports championship.
This year Sixteen teams from around the world — China, Finland, Germany (Theil), Great Britain (Annaly), Iceland, India (Callisto), Italy, Mexico, Mongolia (Erdene), Mongolia (Tserendash), Sweden, Turkey, USA-Breckenridge, USA-Loveland, USA-Vermont, USA-Wisconsin (Tomczak) — began their work of hand-carving 25 ton blocks of snow in Breckenridge, Colorado of United States.
While talking to Kashmir Patriot from United States, Zahoor din Lone, a young Kashmir artist and the captain of the team said they are proud to represent their country on an international platform. He adds that this is like a dream come true to represent India in Snow sports championship as India has never participated in this sport.
“As we are very excited, but equally we are very disappointed because despite qualifying for the participation in championship, we struggle from pillar to post to manage our uniforms and tools for the very sport. India is such a great and big country, but sportsmen like us are ignored instead of showing Love,” he said.
He says, the Team manages their requirements by their own, besides arrangements by the championship organizers. “Once we made headlines in the televisions and newspapers by qualifying for the championship, people were promising support, but once we approached them, especially government authorities, they keep passing the buck,” they said.
Adding that, “We are representing India in this international championship, like other team in cricket, football or wrestling. If we won the championship, who is going to take the credit?, those who rendered us pillar to post or those government machineries who were supposed to support us,” they asked.
The championship is being organized by the International Snow Sculpture Organizing Committee (ISSCOC) for the last 26 years in Breckenridge, Colorado. It is worth mentioning that every year the ISSCOC receives hundreds of fantastic submissions for the event, amongst which just sixteen teams are chosen.
Interestingly, this year for the first time, a team from India has been chosen from amongst these fine submissions for the world class snow event at Breckenridge in US.
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