Future sports stars shine at School Sports Days event
The second season of School Sports Days Programme which is run by the Ministry of Sports Affairs began their activities on Wednesday.
As many as 464 students took part at the running competition which was held on Thursday at Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex. The large participations of students were from 28 private and international schools. The technical coaches and organisers arranged different tracks based on the ages and classified the participants into different categories.
Athletics coaches attended the event and gave the general instruction and delivered the right learning skills to the participants. Basil bin Ahmed al Rawas, General Manager of Finance and Administration Department at Ministry of Sports Affairs was the chief guest in presence of Zayana bint Abdullah al Yarubi, the head of School Sports Days Programme and officials at the ministry. The chief guest distributed at the end of the running competition the awards to the top winners from both genders in different categories.
On Wednesday, more than 400 students joined at basketball festival event. The programme registered the top record of the number of students’ participation in the running competition and the basketball festival event. All the students belong to 40 private and international schools. The programme aims to raise the awareness on the importance of sports to all the community categories including the junior ages. Also, to develop the technical skills of students with potential and keep them at a sound technical level.
The programme had registered a positive turnout in the first phase as many junior students took part at the athletics, swimming and other sports festivals. The technical staff noted down the top potential stars and kept them in a comprehensive programme and prepared them to join at the early junior national teams in the nearest future.
The programme is in its ninth year since its launch in 2000 and to be done in two phases. The first phase began from September until middle of December. The second phase started from February until end of April. The ninth edition targets the junior students from age 7 to 10. The programme featured sports including athletics, table tennis, basketball, swimming, badminton, football, beach volleyball, bowling, handball and others. The head committee of the programme preferred to organise each event as a festival to encourage the students to like the sports and provide them the basics training. The graduates of the programme can join the Youth Training Centres which is another programme under supervision of the Ministry of Sports Affairs.