The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Volleyball tournament for visually impaired held

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 02, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Volleyball tournament for visually impaired held

Staff Reporter

— Photo: K. Pichumani

Winners all: Visually impaired girls participate in a volleyball tournament in Chennai.

Chennai: The fifth edition of a volleyball tournament for the visually impaired was held this weekend on Velammal School grounds in Mogappair. Information Minister Parithi Ilamvazhuthi inaugurated it.

Children from the school and well-wishers flocked to the school to cheer the sportsmen and women during the two-day event.

While Velammal School hosted the event, My TVS was the major sponsor of the tournament, in which visually challenged players from Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh participated. Though teams from Kerala and Karnataka were also scheduled to take part in the event they could not because of the chikungunya scare, said C. Govinda Krishnan, founder of Nethrodaya, which organised the event.

The game was modified to suit the needs of the visually challenged players. Each team consisted of six members and the team that scored 25 points was declared winner of the match. On Saturday, the girls from Arni and Palayamkottai began their match with four members of each team blindfolded and two partially blind members acting as guides. The teams positioned on either side of the net played a perfect game.

The players had plenty of encouragement with cheerleaders clapping wildly and cheering gustily every time a team scored a point. Their concentration did not waver even when Director General of Police D. Mukherjee and singer Anuradha Sriram came to the venue. Last year a team from Madurai won the trophy. This year too the favourites were the Nethrodaya team from Madurai. But, the boys from the Madurai Indian Association for the Blind and the girls from Arni Blind School emerged winners in the event.

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