Dubai: GEMS Our Own English High School Dubai came up with a fine performance to dominate the 2nd CBD Youth Athletics Championships held at the Dubai Police Officers’ Club late on Saturday.
Led by Rithi Raghunathan, Our Own bagged the overall honours in the girls’ under-12 category and then rode on a fine all-round show to win the boys’ under-15 category as well.
Not to be outdone, the Our Own girls’ under-15 squad (40 points) settled for a somewhat controversial second place behind Jumeirah College (42 points) and the Our Own under-17 boys also missed out on the top spot by a mere one point.
Peter Baltusen, CEO of Commercial Bank of Dubai (CBD) was joined by CBD’s Business Group General Manager Mohammad Faisal Al Galadari, UAE national football team coach Mahdi Ali and Dr. Ahmad Saad Al Sharif, General Secretary of Dubai Sports Council (DSC) in presenting medals to the winners.
“I don’t understand how the points were calculated in the girls’ under-15 category,” Our Own coach Indu Singh told Gulf News.
“We’ve got three first places, one second and one third. while Jumeirah College have two firsts and three second places and yet we are second,” she said.
A spokesperson from CBD clarified that the top-eight positions were awarded points which meant Jumeirah College had ended ahead of Our Own in the girls’ under-15 section.
The competition for girls was held during the morning session and it was Rithi Raghunathan leading the charge for GEMS Our Own English High School Dubai with gold medals in the 60 metres and long jump. Her teammate Aparna Pillai won the shot put and Raghunathan then anchored the Our Own quartet to the gold in the 4x60 metre relay as GEMS Our Own came top with 36 points.
Jumeirah College came second overall with 30 points, while Nad Al Hamar School was placed third overall with 27 points.
In the girls’ under-15 section, it was Jumeirah College’s Naomi Tarri who came up with exceptional performances by winning the long jump and coming in second in the 100 metres, while Matilda Hand ran an exceptional 800 metres race to bag the gold in a time of 3:04.27.
The Our Own girls won the 4x100 metre relay in a time of 56.99 seconds, while Sonu Soby Varghese clinched gold in the 100 metres in a time of 14.08 seconds and Attira Suresh was best in the shot put with a distance of 9.80 metres. However, the cumulative performance saw Our Own fall short by a mere two points of the Jumeirah College total of 42 points. Nad Al Hamar School came third with 22 points while German International School was fourth with 20 points.
Dubai National School, Al Barsha (42 points) finished ahead of Mohammad Bin Rashid School (40 points) and German International School (21) in the boys’ under-12 section, while Al Safa High School (58 points) rode on Mohammad Bin Sulayem’s performances to take the top position ahead of GEMS Our Own (57) in the boys’ under-17 category.
