Renowned Indian sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik has won gold medal on Friday in people's choice prize at world championship festival of sand sculpting Russe, 2016 in Bulgaria for his sand sculpture - "Drugs kill Sports".
Pattnaik said, "Modern day sports supplemented by advanced technologies have reached a new level of competition throwing new challenges to all stakeholders such as sports personnel, organizers and regulators. One such unsolicited issue is usage of performance enhancing drugs by sports personnel. My sand art - Drugs Kill Sports, is an awareness creating sculpture."
"I am very happy that my sand art got the gold medal. I have created the two faces one is of Lance Armstrong and another is Maria Sharapova, the two iconic players who were mired in the drug controversy, thus bringing bad name for themselves and the entire sports world. I wanted to convey the message to the entire sports fraternity to uphold the inspirational stature of sports," he added.
The championship was started on May 26 and ended on June 3. Total 10 artists participated from around the world. The topic of the competition was "Sport World and Olympic Symbols" and the height of the sculpture was 2 meter.
Pattnaik has got highest vote from visitors. Recently he won a gold medal in Moscow for creating sand sculpture on 'Peace and Nonviolence'.
The championship was held between May 26-June 3 and total 10 artists participated from around the world.
