PHOTOS: Indian wins sand art contest in Bulgaria

Renowned sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik has won gold medal in a world sand art championship in Bulgaria.

He has won people's choice prize for his sand sculpture 'Drugs kill Sports'. "It is an awareness sand sculpture to uphold the sanctity, richness and sports, as an ever cherished saga of entertainment source, in high esteem," Pattnaik said.

The championship was held between May 26 and June 3 in which 10 artists from across the world has participated.

"In my sculpture, I have created the two faces--one is of Lance Armstrong and another of Maria Sharapova, the two iconic players who were mired in the drug controversy, thus bringing bad name for themselves and the entire sports world.

"Through my sand art, I wanted to convey the message to the entire sports fraternity to uphold the sanctity, richness and inspirational stature of sports. Let the spirit of the game prevail," said the Padma Shri awarded sand artist.

The theme of the competition was "Sport World and Olympic Symbols" and the height of the sculpture was two meter.

Sudarsan has got highest vote from visitors.

"Modern day sports supplemented by advanced technologies have reached a new level of competition throwing new challenges to all stakeholders such as sports personnel, organisers 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," he said during the prize distribution ceremony held on Friday.

Sudarsan has participated in more than 50 international sand sculpture championships across the world and won many awards for the country. He has also got the fourth highest civilian award Padma Shri in 2014.

Recently, he has own gold medal in Moscow for creating sand sculpture on "Peace & Non-Violence". Sudarsan runs a sand art school at Puri beach in Odisha.