Cyclist Bilal eyes more medals, participation in international events

Having already bagged eight medals during the season, young cycling sensation of Kashmir, Bilal Ahmad Dar, is eyeing more medals in the upcoming national track cycling championship.

The70th senior, 47th junior and 33rd sub-junior national track cycling championship is scheduled to be held in New Delhi from January 2 to 6. Bilal, who recently made headlines by winning four gold medals in the national school games, and three medals in national cycling championship in Karnataka is hopeful of adding more medals to his tally.

Bilal, a resident of Chek-I-Kawoosa, Narbal Budgam is undergoing training at Sports Authority of India (SAI) cycling academy from past one and half years and was recently selected for the India camp. 

In the track national event, Bilal is the only cyclist from Kashmir while as other  five are from Leh and one from Jammu who form the J&K team. Bilal is going to compete in two events and he is hopeful adding more medals to his tally.

“The year 2017 was very good for me as I won three medals in the national event and then went on to win four in school games. In 2016 I had won silver medal. Till date I have won eight medals ,” he said.

“I am in good rhythm. I hope I will do well in the forthcoming events. I am training hard in the national camp and I hope to win some more medals,” he said.

He said that in March, Cycling Federation is going to field its team in the Asian championship scheduled to be held in China and he has a chance to be  part of the team.

“Winning medals in the national events is first step towards getting noticed. I have done that and now my next step is to focus on the trials for the International competitions,” he said.

Bilal hails from Narbal-Kawoosa village in Budgam district. The area has given multiple cycling medal winners to the state. After the heroics of the Muhammad Akber Khan in cycling sport for state number of youngsters picking up cycling as their sport jumped dramatically and Bilal was also one among them. Narbal-Kawoosa belt of Budgam is known as cycling village. This area has produced four national medal winning cyclists and also only International cyclist from Kashmir.

Of five national medal winners in cycling sports, Akber Khan, Adil Teli, Mansoor and Bilal belong to this area while as Shabir Akhoon hails from Srinagar. Currently there are more than 20 cyclists in this belt who own imported cycling equipments worth lakhs. 

“I have heard that number of new entrants into cycling sport has gone up after I won multiple medals in the national events. It is good thing for sport. Our area has got the potential to produce more national and International level cyclists. I hope government comes forward with the idea of creating scheme or curriculum that boosts cycling in this belt,” he added.