About Us

The Sepaktakraw game began in Nagaland as an entertainment sports with Holshe Khrieo, Physical Education Teacher and the Technical Assistance rendered by the Sports Authority of India (SAI), Dimapur. In 1995, the game became popular among the Sports Person and soon the Nagaland Sepaktakraw Association (NSTA) was formed in the year 1996 with Mr. Nungsang Aier as its first President and late R. Ketsore Mekro as its General Secretary.

Holshe Khrieo was sent for Diploma course in Sepaktakraw at the National Institute of Sports (NIS), Sports Authority of India (SAI)Kolkata, by the Directorate of School Education, Govt of Nagaland and on completion made the first Sepaktakraw Coach in the Department of Youth Resources & Sports, Nagaland in 2003. 

NSTA got affiliated to the Nagaland Olympics Association, the Nagaland Sports Council in 1999 and affiliated to the Sepaktakraw Federation of India in 2000. Since its inception, NSTA has been making its best efforts to popularize the game by conducting demonstration in schools, villages and National day celebrations in the different districts throughout the states. NSTA had also participated for the first time in North East Sports Festival at Tinsukia in 2000 and won Bronze medal. 

The Nagaland Sepaktakraw Association has been participating in the Senior National, Junior National, Sub-Junior National & National School Games continuously starting from the year 2000. 

The Department of Youth Resources & Sports has taken keen interest in the game and has confidence in the potential to produce excellent players in the state. The department has been providing financial assistance for coaching camps and participation in the National and International Championships. The department started a Sepaktakraw Sports Academy in Dimapur during the year 2004. The SAI Dimapur also included Sepaktakraw game as one of its disciplines for both boys & girls for regular inmate and day boarding.The Nagaland Police has included Sepaktakraw Game in the DGP Team in 2012. 

The discipline of Sepaktakraw has seen a progressive rise out of relative obscurity into growing prominence in the past decade.Testament to this fact is its priority categorization within the revised category of sports disciplines as arbitrated on and set by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports of the government of India and the Sports Authority of India (SAI). 

It is pertinent to note that this welcome decision taken by the Central Government Agencies are anything but arbitrary but well deserved seeing as it comes on the heels of the promising prodigious performance of the National Sepaktakraw squad at the 17th Asian games held in Incheon (South Korea) in 2014 as well as the 4th Beach Asian Games at Phuket (Thailand) in 2014.Also, in the 18th Asian Games, the Indian Sepaktakraw team made history by winning bronze medal. 

While the growth of Sepaktakraw game is the sport in the country is a prospect that is commendable and represents the unreality of the undeniable time and efforts diligently invested by the players, the coaches and all involved at the administrative strata Vis-a-Vis the Sepaktakraw discipline, it is an even greater source of pride to acknowledge the role of the Nagaland State Sepaktakraw players in paving the way for the sport to gain the sort of traction that it has gained and continues to do in the state as well Nationwide.

Some of the Major Achievements 

Though Sepaktakraw is a recently introduced game in the state, it has been able to achieve commendable place in National as well as International level.As of the present, the Nagaland Sepaktakraw players have won medals for the state in all categories in every single mandatory National Championship like Senior, Junior, Sub-Junior National Championships, National School Games and International Events funded by Dept of Youth Resources & Sports Govt of Nagaland. 

Additionally, 16 players from Nagaland, as of date, have participated and won medals in the International Championships.

A few of the notable accolades won by the State Sepaktakraw players & coach follow;

1. The Nagaland Sepaktakraw team consecutively won medals in the last two National Games held at Guwahati in 2007 and Jharkhand in 2011

2. Mr. ViseyieKoso from Nagaland was a key member of the Indian Sepaktakraw Team at two successive Asian Games, first the 16th Asian Games held in Guangzhou (China) in 2010 and second at the 17th Asian Games held at Incheon (South Korea) in 2014. Worth noting is that MrViseyieKoso is the first & sole Naga male sportsperson in any disciplineto have participated at the Asian Games platform. Mr. Holshe Khrieo, Sepaktakraw coach from the Dept of Youth Resources and Sports, Nagaland led the Indian Sepaktakraw Team at the 17th Asian Games 2014

3. Mr. ViseyieKoso won Bronze medal representing Indian Sepaktakraw Team in the 4th Beach Asian Games held at Phuket (Thailand) in 2014

4. Miss Keneilenuo Nakhro of State Sports Academy Dimapur (Sepaktakraw discipline) is the only player from State Sports Academy to have qualified and participated in the Asian Games (17th Asian Games Incheon Korea) in the history of State Sports Academy under the department of Youth Resources & Sports, Nagaland

5. Miss Jwensinle Kesen Sepaktakraw player of State Sports Girls Academy Dimapur and Miss Puleno Neikha Sepaktakraw instructor, Dept of Youth Resources and Sport Govt. of Nagaland were among the Indian Sepaktakraw team as player and coach in the 18th Asian Games Jakarta Palembang 2018

6. During his time as the incumbent Chief Minister of Nagaland, Shri Neiphiu Rio also bore the post of the President of the Nagaland Olympic Association. Over the course of Shri Rio’s presidency, the Nagaland Sepaktakraw Association successfully organized 2 National Sepaktakraw Championships in Kohima, Nagaland under the aegis of the Department of Youth Resources & Sports, Nagaland in the year 2009 & 2013

7. Ever since the induction of the sports person’s cash award ceremony, the Nagaland Sepaktakraw players have collectively received the highest amount of cash awards during theFacilitation Programmes held by the Dept of Youth Resources & Sports Nagaland. 13 players received The North East Cash Award for Excellence in Sports at National and International level 2013

8. Holshe Khrieo has been selected 6 times as the India Sepaktakraw Coach to participate in the King’s Cup World Sepaktakraw Championship Thailand and Malaysia during the years 2002, 2004, 2007, 2009, 2011 & 2018.

9. Holshe Khrieo was the first ever Coach from Department of Youth Resources & Sports Govt of Nagaland to represent Indian Sepaktakraw Team Coach in the 17th Asian Games Incheon (South Korea) 2014

10. Holshe Khrieo has been 2 times recipient of Coaches Award organized by the Dept. of Youth Resources & Sports Govt of Nagaland during 2005 & 2009

11. Holshe Khrieo has received Governor’s Gold Medal Awardee in 2010

12. Holshe Khrieo received Dr T Ao Sports Awardee in 2018

Over the course of years since the introduction of Sepaktakraw in the state, the players, the coaches and all involved in a variety of capacities with regard to the discipline have been privy to the setbacks and hurdles that have had to be faced along its development from a sport considered unviable, unplayable and resigned to the sidelines of mainstream sports to now becoming a discipline that represents the best and brightest of what the state has to offer towards the domain of professional and competitive sports.

It has been an arduous trail getting the sport to where it stands now in the state but it stands as the greatest testament to the drive and zeal of each of the sports persons’, coaches and individual’s in official capacities involved in the discipline, to break into the echelons of excellence, break free from the clutches of mediocrity and subsequently give birth to a new breed, and successive generation, of uncompromisingly dedicated, disciplined and exceptionally principled sports persons’ who fittingly embody the Latin edict, “Menssana in corpora sano (a healthy mind in a healthy body)’’