Australian Sikh Games 2018 draws large crowds to Bass Hill
THERE was competition on the field and a medical emergency off it as the Australian Sikh Games were held across the Easter weekend.
The Express
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MORE than 100,000 people came to Canterbury-Bankstown over the Easter weekend for the Australian Sikh Games.
With about 3000 athletes competing in 16 sports, including kabaddi, ASG (Sydney) president Avtar Sidhu said it was a “fantastic event”.
“Overall, I’m really proud of the local community, they worked really hard to put it together,” he said.
“It’s not easy to hold an event like this unless you have a big team.
“We had a committee of six or seven and the rest were volunteers.”
Mr Sidhu said while the kabaddi was popular, other sports also drew a crowd, including hockey, soccer, netball and volleyball, at Bass Hill.
There was more drama down at the hockey fields, with a man having a heart attack in front of the change rooms on Friday.
“We were lucky we had two doctors on site,” Mr Sidhu said.
“They brought him back before the ambulance got there.”
The man’s daughter posted on the Games Facebook page her gratitude to the “angels” that helped.
“As some of you my be aware, on Friday at lunchtime, my father Raghbir had a major heart attack outside the change rooms at the hockey fields,” Simran Kaur Bal posted.
“By God’s grace, he received CPR almost immediately from what our family will now know as angels.
“We can only thank our stars that he survived, and is on the road to recovery to what we are happily referring to as his ‘second birth’.
“Our family and friends would like to extend our deepest gratitude to those angels who saved Dad and gave him CPR and would like to recognise them for their courageous efforts.”
The rest of the weekend went off without a hitch, with crowds and athletes enjoying the occasion and beautiful weather throughout.