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The 37th National Games kickstarted in Goa on Thursday (26 October) and will go on till 9 November. The Olympic-style event will be held across five cities in Goa – Mapusa, Margao, Panjim, Ponda and Vasco.
Almost 10,000 athletes from different parts of the country will compete across 43 sporting disciplines at the 37th National Games. This is the first time that the multi-sport event is being hosted in Goa. The state was previously slated to be the host for the 36th National Games in 2020.
Also read: All you need to know about 2023 National Games
However, the event was later held in Gujarat following multiple postponements.
When the National Games first time came onto the scene, the motto of the event was to recognise talented athletes, who would represent India at the Olympics. After the 1920 Olympics, Dorabji Tata, a prominent businessperson, recommended forming a national body, which would focus on promoting Olympic sports in India and it gave birth to the All India Olympic Committee.
After four years, in 1924, the first National Games was organised in Lahore (now in Pakistan). At that time, the event was officially named the All India Olympic Games. A total of eight athletes were picked from the inaugural National Games to represent the country at the 1924 Paris Olympics.
In 1927, the All India Olympic Committee was reformed and was named the Indian Olympic Association (IOA). Dorabji Tata served as the first president of the organisation, while Dr AG Noehren, the director of the YMCA College of Physical Education, was appointed as the secretary.
The initial four editions of the All India Olympic Games were held every two years. The event was renamed the National Games in 1940, with Mumbai being hosts for that edition. The 1948 Lucknow Games was the first edition to be held after India gained independence. The event continued to be held every two years except for the 1979 edition, which was hosted after nine years of the previous edition in Hyderabad.
Ahead of the 26th National Games in 1985, the IOA decided to revamp the structure of the event in a bid to increase the hype, making it more like an Olympic-style event.
As a result, several legendary athletes like PT Usha, Shiny Abraham and Adille Sumaruwalla took part in the 1985 National Games.
Since the 1985 edition, Kerala (1987), Pune (1994), Bengaluru (1997), Manipur (1999, Punjab (2001), Hyderabad (2002), Guwahati (2007), Jharkhand (2011), Trivandrum (2015) and Gujarat (2022) have hosted the editions of the Games.
Since then, more than 5,000 athletes have competed for medals in each edition of the National Games.
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