Odisha women won three bronze medals in the 9th Senior and 5th U-25 National Lawn Bowls Championship, which was held at Delhi Public School, RK Puram, New Delhi from 26 December 2024 to 2 January 2025. Odisha won the three medals in senior women pairs, women triples and women fours by reaching semifinals.

The bronze medal in women pairs was bagged by Swetlana Bakshi and Roshni Sahu who beat Rajasthan 26-6 in the quarterfinals before losing to Jharkhand 11-17 in the semifinals.

Bishnupriya Bohidar, Saina Naik and Padmasinee Putel claimed the bronze in women triples as they made it to the semifinals with a thrilling 14-13 win over Assam in the last-eight stage. In the semifinals, the Odisha trio gave Jharkhand a tough fight before going down 17-18.

Bishnupriya Bohidar, Padmasinee Putel, Rajeswari Seth and Roshni Sahu settled for the women fours bronze after losing to Delhi in the semifinals 14-15. Earlier in the quarterfinals, the Odisha quartet got the better of Gujarat 12-11.

Before their participation in the National championship, players of the Odisha squad sharpened their skills at a preparatory camp, which was held in Delhi from 12 to 24 December 2024. The senior squad featured six men and as many women, while the U-25 squad consisted of two men and two women.

State Lawn Bowling Association Odisha president Ananga Udaya Singh Deo and secretary Sumit Ranjan Purohit congratulated the medal winners and wished them success at the 38th National Games, scheduled to be held in Uttarakhand from 28 January to 14 February 2025.

ODISHA SQUAD:

Women: Swetlana Bakshi, Padmasinee Putel, Rajeswari Seth, Roshni Sahu, Bishnupriya Bohidar, Saina Naik, Sunena Bakshi, Srabani Sethi.

Men: Kailash Majhi, Narasingha Rana, Lalit Sharma, Sourav Ranjan Maharana, Dinesh Kumar Mahananda, Tarini Prasad Nayak, Ankit Naik, Ayushman Bag. Coach-Mentor: Nitin Vaswani.
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PHOTO: Odisha medal winners (L-R) Bishnupriya Bohidar, Rajeswari Seth, Saina Naik, Padmasinee Putel, Swetlana Bakshi and Roshni Sahu pose at the Senior National Lawn Bowls Championship in New Delhi on 2 January 2015.