St. Joseph's success story

Published : Dec 12, 2009 00:00 IST

The St. Joseph's Sports Academy's contribution to athletics in Tamil Nadu, and Chennai in particular, is immense. Headed by the dynamic director of the St. Joseph's College and with a panel of coaches under the leadership of Dr. Nagarajan, the Academy has been in the forefront of fostering talent, especially from the underprivileged section of the society.

The results have been fantastic, and nothing bears testimony to this than the success recorded by the academy's athletes at the recent Junior National Championship held in Warangal recently.

The shining star in the St. Joseph's Sports Academy's firmament is Gayathry Govindaraj, who is seen as a potential for a medal in international competitions. She has been outstanding in every national-level meet, but her best emerged at the Junior Commonwealth Games in Pune. With one gold and two silver medals at the meet in Pune, Gayathry underlined her potential.

Since then, she has been courting success after success, the last one being the twin gold medals at the Warangal meet. It is a pity that her best effort in the hurdles had to be hand-timed because of the absence of the wind-gauge. Coach Nagarajan was terribly disappointed that his ward missed the National record because of this solecism.

Kesavaramani is another promising hurdler from the academy and it is of some significance that both Gayathry and Ratheesh Kumar were declared the best athletes in their categories in the junior Nationals.

St. Joseph's accounted for a majority of the medals won by Tamil Nadu at the Warangal meet. To be exact, 11 gold, 10 silver and five bronze medals were won by the athletes from the academy.

The record holders were felicitated by the director, Babu Manoharan, and other members of the athletics fraternity.

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