NEW DELHI: India' Bhaichung Bhutia is about to sign a three-year contract with Bury of the English Second Division.

``Bhaichung is an intelligent player. He picks up things quickly. Give him (between) three and six months then watch him really go,'' said Bury manager Neil Warnock, according to a press release.

Within a few days of arrival at Bury for trial, the Indian footballer made his mark with a hat-trick in a friendly match and went on to impress with his skills, the release added.

Said P C Raj Purohit, Bhaichung's NRI agent: ``Hopefully, this (the contract) will help promote Indian football interests overseas. It is a situation we intend to build upon with other developments in the pipeline.''

Gold for grapplers

NEW DELHI: Indian grapplers produced two gold medals and a bronze in the four-day World Freestyle Cadet Wrestling Championship that ended in Poland on Sunday night.

Delhi's Yogeswar Dutt (42 kg) and Sushil Kumar (50 kg) claimed gold medals tomatch India's previous best of two gold when they hosted the event in Delhi in 1997.

Punjab's Raminder Kaur won bronze in girls' 38 kg category, according to information received here by Wrestling Federation of India president G S Mander. India was fielding a girls' squad for the first time in an international meet.

Youth squad

CALCUTTA: The All India Football Federation (AIFF) selected a 20-member youth squad for a two-week goodwill tour of Mauritius from August 11. The team, being sent following an invitation from the Mauritian government, will play a few friendlies at Port Louis.

Team: Dinesh Nair (Kerala), Sangram Mukherjee (Bengal), Mahesh Gawli, M Suresh (both Kerala), Akshay Das, Amjad Ali Khan (both Bengal), Janak Basumatari (Assam), Sanjay Parte, Covan Lawrence (both Goa), Jiten Rai (Assam), Dipankar Chatterjee, Kamal Ghosh (both Bengal), Saroj Pattanaik (Orissa), Kushal Raj Kanwar, Crisipin Chhetry (both Assam), A Rahim Nabi, Ramesh Rawat, Tushar Das (all three from Bengal), AS Feroze(Kerala), Bijen Singh (Bengal).

PPBA on the Net

BANGALORE: The Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy (PPBA) has opened a website, thus becoming the first definitive site for badminton lovers of the country to turn to.

The site www.padukoneacademy.com has details about the academy itself, coaches, star products, selection procedures to enroll and so on.

Indian juniors

NEW DELHI: The Indian junior hockey squad leaving on Monday for their three-week long European tour will aim for exposure with an eye on the 2001 Junior World Championship to be held in Hobart, Australia.

The team had its final practice session at the National Stadium and will play a match against the senior side bound for South Africa on Monday, coach C R Kumar said.

Ojha president

CHANDIGARH: B S Ojha and P S Virk have been re-elected unanimously as president and honourary general secretary respectively of Gymnastic Federation of India (GFI), at its annual general meeting.

Punjab Olympic Associationpresident Sukh Dev Singh attended the meeting as an observer of Indian Olympic Association, a release of the federation said.

-- ENS and Agencies