Exactly two years from now, Odisha will be hosting the 2023 Men’s Hockey World Cup in Bhubaneswar and Rourkela. Two years might look like a long time, but to organise an international-level hockey tournament in a post-Covid world, the Naveen Patnaik government knows that it needs to buckle up from now. Preparations are already afoot to reinforce necessary infrastructure for the 2023 Hockey World Cup to be held smoothly, and Hockey India is assisting the state government in the process.
With the next Hockey World Cup, India will be the host of this prestigious international tournament for a record fourth time. Meanwhile, Odisha will be the first state of the nation to organise the Men’s Hockey World Cup for two successive times. The matches of the tournament will be held across venues of Bhubaneswar and Rourkela from January 13 to January 29 in 2023.
Odisha played host to the 14th edition of the Men’s Hockey World Cup in 2018. While the matches were held at Kalinga Stadium in the state capital back then, this time the matches will be shared, with a world-class stadium planned in the steel city of Rourkela.
Bhubaneswar is already ready to host the matches as it has hosted the World Cup successfully once. However, Rourkela is relatively unknown in the international hockey circuit and the 2023 Hockey World Cup is the perfect opportunity for the steel city to make a mark on the global sports scene. A world-class stadium with 20,000 seating capacity and premium sports facilities that will be on a par with other great stadiums of the world will go a long way towards that goal.
To meet the infrastructure requirements and expectations of the International Hockey Federation, work has begun on developing synthetic hockey turf in all the 17 blocks of the Sundargarh district, popularly known as the nursery of hockey in India.
Sharing an update on preparations towards the high-profile event, Odisha Sports and Youth Services minister Tusharkanti Behera said the government expects to finish the infrastructure development project by mid-2022. This will give the Odisha government ample time to finetune the final arrangements for 2023 Men’s Hockey World Cup.
The government has plans to the conduct the big event on a larger scale than any of the national- and international-level tournaments it has hosted so far, including the 2018 Hockey World Cup. The sports minister expressed confidence in the state government’s ability to make the historic event a memorable success.
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