Odisha Sun Times Sports Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Aug 31:

Football playing school students in Bhubaneswar have not only improved their skill by leaps and bounds, but also their knowledge of the sport, thanks to the Kalinga Marine-Bibekananda Memorial (KMBM) Inter School Football Tournament, being organised by Unit-VI Athletic Association in the Odisha capital since 1989.

This was evident from the impressive performance of the boys from 14 schools in a quiz competition, which was conducted here at Unit-VI Government Boys’ High School campus here today as part of silver jubilee celebration of the inter school football tournament.

The subject was the FIFA World Cup.

Two boys from each of the 14 schools first appeared in a written test and the best eight pairs qualified to compete in the quiz contest, which featured a four-phase question-answer session.

St Xavier’s High School (Kedargouri) duo of Pratyush Kumar Swain and Gourav Mullick emerged champions, while St Xavier’s High School (Khandagiri) pair of Ashutosh Mishra and Hritik Ray finished runners-up.

The Delhi Public School (Kalinga) team -Subhankar Das and Dhyanendra Bhanjadeo- finished third, defeating their opponents, Sainik School.

The boys came with good preparation and scored good marks, very often giving quick and correct answers.

``We gathered information by reading newspapers and magazines that come to our school. We also watched football a lot during the recent World Cup,'' said a competitor from Sainik School.

``We made special preparation for a week, collecting information and statistics from internet, especially Wikipedia,'' added Pratyush Swain of the St Xavier's High School, Kedargouri.

A team of former players and referees, comprising Prafulla Kumar Mishra, Sushant Mohanty, Maheswar Singh and Chitta Ranjan Patra did a modest job in preparing interesting questions and conducting the contest.

The top three teams were handed over trophies by Hockey Odisha-Gangpur secretary Debasish Gouda and Kalinga Marine director Babi Mishra at the presentation ceremony. Unit-VI Athletic Association secretary Dilip Das was present on the occasion.

After a day's break, the inter-school football tournament will resume tomorrow with Xavier International School meeting Sai International School and Delhi Public School taking on BJEM School.