The region’s top young badminton players put their skills to the test again last week in the finals of the Shuttle Time Dubai Schools Championships at the India Club, Oud Metha.
After the highly competitive preliminary rounds it was Indian High School who came away with honours in all but one of the age group sections, while Al Ebdaa Model School and Dubai National School starred in the Emirati Challenge.
The young players had won their way through to the Schools Championships finals after finishing in the top two in each age group in the Girls’ and Boys’ Championships held earlier this month. They were joined in the Finals by the top ranked players in the Emirati Challenge, which was run alongside the Schools Championships.
More than 440 players from 30 schools participated across the three rounds of the Championships, and organisers were delighted to see the continuing improvements in the standard of play as a result of the Shuttle Time Dubai programme which has trained over 180 teachers and coaches throughout the region this year.
The Indian High School performed exceptionally well, taking out the Under 12, Under 14 and Under 16 boys’ categories and the Under 14 and Under 16 girls’ categories.
Their first victory came in the Boys Under 12 category, when they defeated Our Own High School Al Warqa’a 2-1. They repeated that result in the Under 14 division, again defeating Our Own High School Al Warqa’a 2-1, before taking out the Under 16 category with a 3-0 win over GEMS Our Own Indian School.
In the girls divisions, The Indian High School triumphed in the Under 14 Category with a 3-0 win over GEMS Our Own Indian School, before posting a 3-0 win over GEMS Our Own English High School in the Under 16 division.
In the girls Under 12 category, Dubai Gem Private School took the honours, defeating GEMS Our Own English High School 2-1.
In the Emirati challenge girls’ divisions, the Al Ebdaa Model School took out all three categories, with Ayah Mohammed defeating the Dubai International School’s Shaikha Ahmad to win the girls Under 12 division, Latifa Yousif defeating Maha Ali of Princess Haya School in the Under 14 division, and Hend Abdullah defeating Rawda Al Hely of Dubai International School in the Under 16 division.
In the boy’s divisions it was a battle of teammates with both finalists in each category representing the same school. In the Under 12 division Dubai International School’s Rashed Abdullah defeated his teammate Naser Merza, in the Under 14 division Dubai National School’s Saeed Omar defeated Mohammed Ali, and in the Under 16 division Abd Allah Ali of Dubai National School defeated Zaed Al Shamsi.
The winners were presented with their trophies by Mr. Ahmed Abdul Rahman from Dubai Educational Zone. Also in attendance for the presentations were; Mr Paul Valcovics, Senior Sports Manager at Falcon Associates and Mr. Dinesh Nair, India Club Dubai.
Jaffer Ebrahim; Dubai Badminton Development Manager, said “For today’s winners the best is yet to come as the winning teams from both the first Schools Championships in April and this edition in October will now play off in the Grand Final which will be held during the Dubai World Superseries Finals in December. The children will be playing on the same courts as their heroes, and will have the chance to meet the Olympic gold medallists, which I know will be a wonderful experience for them.”
The competition was organized in conjunction with the Dubai Sports Council, and is part of the ongoing Shuttle Time Dubai grassroots development program which is aimed at increasing participation in badminton. Shuttle Time Dubai is part of Dubai’s four-year, multi-platform partnership with the Badminton World Federation (BWF), facilitated by Falcon and Associates, the pinnacle of which is the staging of the annual Dubai World Superseries Finals, which will be held in the city each year until 2017.
