Pune recognized as the cultural capital of Maharashtra is the second largest city after the capital Mumbai. With the population of more than 2.5 million Pune apart from being the cultural hub of Maharashtra is now emerging as the industrial, educational, social hub of Maharashtra. The city of Pune was founded by Chattrapatti Shivaji in 1676 A.D.
Recent years have witnessed an immensely progress of Pune in coming up as an educational destination amongst the IT students as the result students not only from Maharashtra but from rest of India also come here to get acquainted with the IT education. Despite of this Pune has also got equipped with the well developed sports facilities.
There is a huge fleet of sports institutes located in Pune. All these institutes share the common objectives which are mentioned below:
To develop the overall personality of students,
To develop physical fitness,
To develop healthy mind through sportsman spirit,
To develop team work and leadership quality and
To identify / nurture budding sports talent.
Unlike several other Indian cities the most popular sports played in Pune is undoubtedly cricket. Recently with the entrance of Pune in forth coming version of Indian Premium League (IPL) in 2011, the excitement towards the sports of cricket has reached to its peak. The team of Pune will be owned by the Sahara Group and will be known as Sahara Pune Warriors.
Besides cricket the other popular games played in Pune are athletics, basketball, badminton, hockey, football, tennis, etc. Every year the Pune International Marathon is organized in Pune in which not only the renowned celebrities but people from different parts of Maharashtra equally participate.
Pune has its own football club known as Pune Football Club or as Pune FC in short. The club was founded in August 2007 and participates in Indian Football League.
The Deccan Gymkhana Club and the court at Fergusson College are well known for organizing the Basket Ball matches.
Pune is also famous for the horse race. The Pune Race Course built in 1830 covers the area of 118.5 acres is located in Pune Cantonment area. The area is under the control of the Indian Army. The racing events are organized mainly between July to October every year. The main racing events are Derby, RWITC Invitational and Independence Cup.
In short it can be said that despite of being the cultural, industrial, social and educational hub of Maharashtra Pune also offers equal chances for the sports lovers to enjoy the sports of their choice.
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