Traditional Dussehra fair at Gujarat’s tribal Devgadh Baria will have added attraction of rural sports competition event this year.

Sports Authority of Gujarat has for the first time organized Rural Olympic in Devgadh-Baria’s Dussehra fair on 8,9th October.

Teenagers from across the Gujarat below 16 are going to participate in this event.

Traditional Gujarati/Indian games like short race, long race, rope pulling, long jump, Gedi-dado, Gillol, Cycle-Polo, Kabaddi, Kho-Kho, Archery etc. will be played in competition format on the venue of Devgadh-Baria fair which attracts thousands of villagers from surrounding areas.

It should be noted that under influence of western and more popular games, traditional local varieties of sports are now threatened. Children and teens in Gujarat may have good knowledge of Cricket and Football nowadays but they are having alarming less exposure to traditional local games. Video-Games and Computer-Games have almost ruined the diversity of traditional-local sports.

Thanks to Gujarat government’s Sports Authority, rural-local games are now encouraged at different traditional events. Such events also serve as talent hunt ground to discover newer contestants who could be eventually groomed to represent the state for internationally accepted sports like archery and race at national and world level.

Sports Authority of Gujarat regularly organizes Rural Olympic event at Tarnetar fair in Saurashtra every year. Now Devagadh Baria fair too is included on it’s activity map.