Three sets of results landed out of Jammu's school sport circuit in the space of a few days, and between them they say something more interesting than any one of them does alone: the competitive base here is wider, and more female, than the coverage usually suggests.
A Jammu school takes the ASMITA basketball title
PM SHRI Kendriya Vidyalaya No 2 beat Budgam district 47-31 in the final of the ASMITA Sub-Junior Basketball League, which concluded on 2 September at the Bhagwati Nagar Indoor Sports Complex in Jammu. Budgam had reached the final by beating APS Ratnuchak in the semis.
Twelve teams from districts and educational institutions across J&K took part. The competition was run by the Jammu and Kashmir Basketball Association under the Khelo India Division of the Sports Authority of India.
ASMITA stands for Achieving Sports Milestone by Inspiring Women Through Action — a national women's league programme run by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. Which makes this a Jammu school winning a UT-wide leg of a national women's competition, in a hall you can walk into.
RS Pura sweeps all three kho-kho titles
At the Green Field Ground, Gandhi Nagar, Jammu district's inter-zonal kho-kho competitions ended on 2 September with Zone RS Pura winning the under-14, under-17 and under-19 girls' titles — all three.
U-14 girls — RS Pura 7, Miran Sahib 5
U-17 girls — RS Pura 9, Jammu 6
U-19 girls — RS Pura 11, Khour 6
Ten zones competed — RS Pura, Dansal, Miran Sahib, Jammu, Bhalwal, Khour, Satwari, Gandhi Nagar, Akhnoor and Marh — with around 450 students taking part, organised by the District Youth Services and Sports Organization.
450 girls across ten zones is a bigger participation number than most elite results carry, and one rural zone taking every age group is not luck. That is a coaching story sitting in RS Pura waiting for someone to write it properly.
Double bronze in roll ball
At the North Zone Roll Ball National Championship in Dehradun from 29 to 31 August, J&K's under-17 boys and under-17 girls both took bronze. Uttar Pradesh were overall champions, and J&K's under-11 boys made their national debut.
The girls' captain, Qurat-ul-Ain, was named the championship's top scorer — the second year running she has taken that award. The boys' captain, Omaik Bagdadi, scored ten goals across the tournament.
Roll ball is worth knowing about precisely because it is cheap: skates, a ball and a hard surface. Both J&K squads mix Jammu and Kashmir players in the same dressing room.
None of these three is a headline event. Taken together they are a reasonable answer to a question this city asks a lot — where do you actually go to play something competitively — and the answer, this week, was Bhagwati Nagar, Gandhi Nagar and a rink in Dehradun.
Sources: Daily Excelsior on the ASMITA basketball final and the inter-zonal kho-kho competitions; The Kashmir Images on the roll ball championship; MyGov on the ASMITA programme.
