Badminton tournament for Tamil school kids
FOR two weeks starting October, Tamil schools across the nation will battle it out on the badminton courts for a spot in the Piala SMC Grand Finals.
The state-level qualifying rounds are being held until Oct 15 at various locations across the country, while the Grand Finals will take place on Nov 19 at the Lee Chong Wei Sports Arena in Taman Sri Sentosa, Kuala Lumpur.
Held for the first time, Piala SMC, organised by Sri Murugan Centre, is a national badminton tournament for Tamil school pupilss. SMC is an organisation founded in 1982 by Tan Sri Dr M. Thambirajah to help Indian students excel in academics, as well as to develop positive characteristics and to enhance their community engagement.
Participation for the tournament is free of charge, and as many as 136 schools from nine states are taking part this year.
The tournament has three categories: boys’ singles, girls’ singles and boys’ doubles.
The respective state winners will receive a medal and RM1,000 each, while the runner-sup will get RM500 and a medal.
The national champion will take home RM5,000, a trophy and medals. The runner-up will receive RM3,000 and the semi-finalist, RM1,000.
At the tournament launch at The Challenger Sports Arena in Petaling Jaya, Selangor last Saturday, SMC deputy president Suraindran Kanda said being involved in sports is one way to ensure that youths do not get drawn to negative activities.
“All this while, SMC’s focus has been on academics. We’ve now realised that sports plays an important role in development.
“Many people think that those who are good in sports won’t do well in their studies.
“Actually, the opposite is true, as sports builds many positive traits such as discipline and focus,” Suraindran said.
Special guest Jaganathan Ramasamy, Malaysia’s national athletics head coach, said: “Sports moulds students into better individuals.”
“When they play sports, they have targets and will be motivated to do well. It also makes them healthy so they should do at least two hours of sports daily,” he said.
Jaganathan added that parents should take an active role in making sure that their children play some sort of sports.
Malaysian Paralympic athlete and veteran powerlifter Marriyappan Perumal was also present at the launch.
SMC wants to hold the event as an open tournament for Tamil school students next year. It also hopes to open the event to all Malaysians in 2018.