Indu Puri

Indu Puri (born 14 September 1953)[1] is a former Indian international female Table tennis sportsperson in the 1970s and 1980s. She won the National women's singles title a record eight times.[2] Her highest rankings have been: international 63 (1985), Asian 8, and Commonwealth (2),[3] she was the first Indian woman to beat a world champion, beating Pak Yung-Sun of North Korea in the 1978 Asian Table Tennis Championships at Kuala Lumpur.[4]

Indu Puri
NationalityIndia
ResidenceDelhi
Born1953 (age 66–67)
Kolkata
Highest ranking63

Career

Puri took up table tennis at the age of around 11. Her father Amrit Lal Puri was the manager of a jute mill and used to take her to a club in the mill. She took part in the first Nationals in 1969. She won the first of her eight titles in the Ahmedabad Nationals of 1972, defeating Rupa Mukherjee in the final. Her second title was in 1975. She completed her B.A. from Loreto College, Kolkata and joined the Railways.She continued there till moving to Union Bank in 1981.[1]

Indu Puri was suffering from chronic asthma and had a failing eyesight, when she took up table tennis as a career, despite her doctor's opinion. She shifted base from humid Kolkata to the dry weather of Delhi in 1978 which eased her asthma. [5] She won her third national title in 1979 and won five more in a row.[1]. Her last National title was at Kolkata in 1985 defeating Niyati Roy in the final.[2]

She first represented India in the 1973 World Table Tennis Championships at Sarajevo. She went on to appear in seven World Table Tennis Championships, India finished in the top 16 at Pyong Yang in 1979. [1] She also represented India in six Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships, eventually reaching up to number two position in the Commonwealth in 1982. Thereafter she also remained a national-level sports coach.[3] Puri was ranked 8th in the Jakarta Asian Championship in 1982. In the Asian Championship at Kuala Lampur in 1978, she defeated the world champion Pak Yung-Sun of North Korea.[1]

She was the chairperson of the committee constituted by the Ministry of Sports to select Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna 2008 and Dhyanchand Award 2009 awardees.,[6][7] and was appointed as an "observer" at various sporting events across the nation.[2]

She was awarded the Arjun Award for the year 1979-1980.[8] She has served on India's Anti-Doping Appeals Panel.[9]

gollark: An extra script file could already interface with the existing stuff as far as I can tell.
gollark: Also, you can do the user mode thing *anyway*.
gollark: Simply use `eval`. This is very secure.
gollark: If you just split it into multiple files, that does basically nothing for the important things, the interdependencies between each part.
gollark: Organization is not autonomously attained via file restructuring.

References
  1. Tom Alter. "Indu Puri". Sportsweek, 5-11 June 1985. pp. 27–34.
  2. "Indu Puri is back". Sportstar. Vol. 31, 48, 29 November 2008. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. "A Great Deal To Learn". International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) News, front page. 15 December 2003.
  4. Encyclopædia Britannica (India). Students' Britannica India. Popular Prakashan. pp. 98–99. ISBN 978-0-85229-760-5. Retrieved 12 March 2012.
  5. "How Indu Puri defied asthma to excel in TT". The Tribune. 13 April 2001.
  6. Pratiyogita Darpan (August 2009). Pratiyogita Darpan. Pratiyogita Darpan. p. 207. Retrieved 12 March 2012.
  7. "Indu Puri heads selection panel for Khel Ratna, Arjuna awards". The Times of India. 5 June 2009.
  8. Chitra Garg (2010). Indian Champions: Profiles Of Famous Indian Sportspersons. Rajpal & Sons. pp. 370–375. ISBN 978-81-7028-852-7. Retrieved 12 March 2012.
  9. Pratiyogita Darpan (March 2009). Pratiyogita Darpan. Pratiyogita Darpan. p. 1573. Retrieved 12 March 2012.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.