THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A disgusted Bobby Aloysius hung her boots after being denied a much-deserved Arjuna Award, a few years ago.
But destiny had something else in store for the ace athlete who had represented the country in the Athens Olympics and had bagged a gold in the Asian Championship and a silver in the Busan Asian Games. Now after obtaining a post-graduation in Sports Science from the University of Wales, courtesy the State Government, who sponsored the programme, Bobby, currently posted as Technical Director of Kerala Sports Council, is all set to launch a state of-the-art training camp for high jumpers here which will take off on December 3. Bobby told Express that the objective of organising the ‘High Jump Carnival’ was to impart training to a handful of young athletes who have the mettle to perform at the international level.
The event will be held under the aegis of the Kerala Sports Council at LNCPE, Kariavattom. On the first two days of the camp, training will be imparted to school children, mostly from the the junior classes. Trainees who are undergoing training in the National camp at LNCPE would also take part in the event.
The event will be bifurcated into two sessions. In the morning session, training would be given to participants under the watchful eyes of the instructors. Five coaches, including Ukrainian Nikitin Evgen and SAI coach Annavi, will oversee the performance of the participants.
The training module is framed according European standards. In the afternoon, the candidates would be shown the video recordings of their performance. Technical flaws identified in the video analysis would be rectified by the trainers.
After two days of technical rectification and training, participants will be lined up for a competition on December 5 at University Stadium.
Kerala Sports Council president Padmini Thomas, who appeared enthusiastic about the programme, said that effective training sessions need to be conducted to groom budding talents. She also added that the inter-collegiate sports meet which was once a prestigious event and had moulded many a great athlete, would be reintroduced during the next academic year.