World Kabaddi Technical Commission chairman Dr Ishwar Angadi was recognized with the Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to kabaddi by the Indian state government of Karnataka recently.
The award was presented to Dr Ishwar by the Chief Minister of Karnataka Siddaramaiah at a grand ceremony that also saw achievers from other sports being felicitated.
Dr Ishwar, who was reappointed as the Technical Commission last December for a second term, has been involved in kabaddi since his younger days.
He played for the Karnataka state team as well as for the state university team. Upon graduation he joined the Sports Authority of India (SAI) as a teaching staff.
He had several stints as the coach of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka state kabaddi teams as well as the SAI national side.
He served as the senior kabaddi coach at the faculty in Bangalore before moving back to his hometown ins Dharwad as the administrator of the SAI Training Centre there.
Dr Ishwar, who retired in 2019, also played a key role in the development of kabaddi in Malaysia. He had two stints in Malaysia as the national coach.
The first was for the 2002 Busan Asian Games. Making their debut at the Games, Malaysia defeated the then Asian Championships bronze medalist Japan in the group matches.
He not only coached the national team, but also developed the coaching and technical programmes for Malaysia kabaddi.
His second stint in Malaysia was to prepare the Malaysian teams – men, women and boys and girls U-19 – to the Asian Championships. Malaysia finished runners-up to Iran in the championships in 2003.
He was also the recipient of the World Kabaddi Award for Best Technical from India in 2019.
