Kolkata: More than 40 schools all over Kolkata will be participating in the the fourth Inter School Shooting Championship which will be inaugurated on Wednesday at The Newtown School. Top city schools like the Heritage School, DPS Megacity, Calcutta Boys, St Xaviers Collegiate School will be competing against the district schools in this tournament. The main objective of the Joydeep Karmakar Shooting Academy (JKSA) is to involve more and more students in shooting. The four day competition will have 13 events including 3 special events.
Today marked the opening ceremony of this grand tournament. Eminent sports personalities were present like Billiards player Sourav Kothari and archer Rahul Banerjee.
“I am very happy that sports like these are being promoted at the school level and Joydeep is a good friend of mine. When he called me I became happy that schools are interested in promoting sports like shooting and snooker” said Sourav Kothari.
“Its message that I would like to tell the other new coming schools, that they should promote these sports. There are a lot of young talented students who need a platform and infrastructure and I think New Town school is taking a step in the forward direction. There should be a concerted effort in building a sports culture as far as the school level is concerned in our state and in our country.
On being asked about how parents should decide the sporting future of their parents Kothari said “I think parents should not force their kids to decide the sports which they want to pursue. The kid should decide as there is a lot of opportunity in all the sports. It’s very important to encourage them as well as to keep studies in the radar as both the things can be done simultaneously in life.”
“Wherever I go I always suggest that a sport should start at the grass root level and Joydeep has started that at school level which is extremely important for the Olympic sports like shooting and archery. Until we work hard at the grass root level we won’t perform well in Olympics and in other tournaments.” Said Rahul Banerjee.