School sports from Oct. 24

The second season of the Sports For All multi-discipline inter-school Hyderabad championship is set to start this month-end. Competitions will be held in 24 sports from October 24 to November 6 at the GMC Balayogi Stadium in Gachibowli and Lal Bahadur Stadium, Hyderabad.

Archery, athletics, badminton, boxing, carrom, chess, fencing, judo, karate, mixed martial arts, shooting, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, wrestling, basketball, football, handball, hockey, kabaddi, kho-kho, throwball, volleyball and water polo are the sports in which school kids will vie with each other for honours in different age categories — Under 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18.

Registrations close on October 16 on the allinformative SFA website — www.sfanow.in. Each school will be charged `2,500 for entry into any or all of the disciplines. Entry would be free for underprivileged as well as government schools, according to SFA founder Rishikesh Joshi.

Last year, about 350 schools had taken part in the championship. This time around, we expect the number to be doubled, Joshi said.

In 2017, the Telangana State Sports School emerged on top with the medals tally of 36 gold, 14 silver and 14 bronze medals, followed by the Silver Oaks International School (2015-17) while Hyderabad Public School came third with a total of 22 gold, 12 silver and 10 bronze medals.

SFA, through the five lakh pages on its website, maps the progress of all the athletes from a very young age. This provides transparency and knowledge of talent that can be nurtured in future.

For further details about the event, mail to info.hyd@sfanow.in or call 7981175508.