Kabaddi top guns rally up for mental health initiative under new sport startup

‘Mann Ki Jeet’, the open-to-all initiative brings together leaders in the ecosystem to create awareness on the importance of mental health, ahead of the upcoming tournament, said the sports enterprise.

It said this initiative primarily focuses on Hindi and will reach out to 90 plus academies with more than 800 players and 500,000 plus subscribers of the brand.

Members on board include former captain of the Indian Kabaddi Team Ajay Thakur, along with national players like BC Ramesh, Ashok Shinde, Rishank Devadiga, Indian Captain Deepak Niwas Hooda, Dronacharya Awardee coach Rambir Singh Khokhar, D. Santosh K Chaturvedi among others.

Ajay Thakur said, "I too have been suffering from anxiety and depression since the pandemic. I would now like to help young players participating in the K7 tournament realize their mental health issues and work around the same. This has been a hard time for all of us and I'm truly hoping that the upcoming events will rescue us from this dry run."

"I'm so glad to see so many kabaddi community leaders coming together and joining forces to take up the cause to help the Kabaddi players’ ecosystem," he added.

Kabaddi Adda, part of Analytiq Sports, was co-founded by former professional cricketer and IPL commentator, Suhail Chandhok and Arvind Sivdas.

This 2019 sports venture co-founder and CEO Arvind Sivdas said, “We felt mental health wellbeing was an important issue which needed to be addressed ahead of resumption of live sports after a considerable gap.

"Our initiative saw very encouraging participation from industry leaders and the player community to lift and support budding athletes. We plan to launch the K7 tournaments soon to bring opportunities to players waiting to get back into the game and we hope to see them fit, physically, as well as mentally.”