As the world celebrated International Olympics day on Wednesday, more than 100 coal town players associated with the 32 sports association affiliated to Dhanbad district Olympic association, extended support to team India for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics.

The players participated in a signature campaign launched as part of a week- long drive at a prominent market complex, Ozone Galleria of Dhanbad.

The sportsmen belonging to different district level sports association including athletics, rugby, football, basketball, lawn tennis, gymnastics, ludo, tug of war, netball, softball, kabaddi, kho Kho, thang ta, muay thai, shooting and archery put their signatures in a standi bearing photographs of the Indian team, took a selfie with it and uploaded it on social media.

Talking to The Telegraph Online on Wednesday, Ranjit Keshri, general secretary of Dhanbad District Olympic Association, said, “Owing to Covid protocols of social distancing, we have called sportsmen affiliated to different association in batch wise manner but the enthusiasm among them was palpable as they were very excited ever since we informed them about the signature campaign, a couple of days ago.”

“The signature campaign will continue till June 30,” said Keshri and added that the signature campaign is open for all besides the players.

“We are also organising an online essay writing competition on the topic ‘Olympic Movement in India’ in which the participants are required to write a 100 line essay and we have already received 130 entries from different sports association members so far,” he said.

“The essay competition will continue till June 30 and we will felicitate the winners during the first week of July” said Keshri.

Julie Kumari , an 18-year-old Lawn Bowls player of Dhanbad, who represented the bronze medal winning Jharkhand team in the triple event along with Unnati Priya and Chhoti Kumar in the Khelo India Youth Games held in Guwahati, also took part in the signature campaign.

“We wished great success for Team India in Tokyo Olympics by participating in the signature campaign today and at the same time also pray to god to normalise the Covid situation so that the sporting activities which are lying suspended can resume as early as possible,” said Julie.

Unnati Priya, another Lawn Bowls player who also participated in the signature campaign said, “The Indian team representing us in the Tokyo Olympics has great potential and we are hopeful that they will bring laurels for the country.”