Union Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju has informed that 16-year-old budding cyclist Riyaz, who was gifted with a racing bicycle by President Ram Nath Kovind, will soon become a trainee at the Cycling Federation of India (CFI) under the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and will be training at the Indira Gandhi Stadium in the national capital after Diwali.
“I’m happy to share that Riyaz will be our SAI trainee very soon. President Jihad encouraged this young boy by gifting him a cycle during Eid, and after Diwali, he will be training at India’s top cycling Velodrome in Delhi’s IG Stadium,” Rijiju said in a tweet on Monday.
After this, the President tweeted: “When talent meets opportunity, one is bound to succeed. Glad to know that Riyaz would soon be an SAI trainee and receive professional training by the Sports Authority of India. Way to go.”
President Kovind had gifted Riyaz a racing bicycle on July 30, a day before Eid-al-Adha, at the Rashtrapati Bhawan.
“A student of Class 9 at Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya at Anand Vihar, Riyaz originally belongs to Madhubani district of Bihar. His family members – his parents, two sisters, and one brother – live in Madhubani, while Riyaz stays in a rented accommodation in Maharajpur, Ghaziabad. To supplement his father’s paltry income as a cook, the boy in his free time works in an eatery in Ghaziabad as a dishwasher,” a release from the president’s office had stated then.
In 2017, he won the bronze medal in the Delhi State Cycling Championship. He went on to participate in a school games event in Guwahati, according to the District Magistrate, Ghaziabad, and achieved the fourth rank at the national level.
The President was moved by his story, where despite having extreme financial strain, the cyclist aspires to win gold for India in the next Olympics.
Complimenting Riyaz for his achievements, President Kovind had wished him very best in life and said that his story should serve as worthy of emulation for the country’s youth who must come forward for nation-building by dint of their dedication, hard work, courage and honesty, the release had added.
