CHENNAI: MOP Vaishnav College for Women received the Dr Sivanthi Aditiyan rolling trophy in the women segment for the year 2021-2022 from the Department of Physical Education, University of Madras for producing the maximum number of University players. The college has received this award for the 19th time, a record in itself.
The college’s clear policy for sports quota admission and judicious selection of sportspersons has helped it become a force to reckon. ‘’The fact that we’ve been winning the Sivanthi trophy for the past 19 years gives us great pride. The trophy is awarded to colleges affiliated with the University of Madras for contributing the maximum number of representation in the All-India inter-university tournament. This award is no ordinary feat, because it is only awarded to colleges whose students win a great number of tournaments. If you look at Madras University colleges, each college is specialised in a different game. Our college promotes all sports and we are proud of the award,” said A Amutha Suman Kumar, director of Physical Education.
The management encourages girls to take part in all sports without compromising on their studies and the students enjoy this freedom. “All of our sport-related endeavours, be it getting admissions through the sports quota or anything else, is encouraged by our principal Lalitha Balakrishnan. Our college secretary Manoj Kumar Sonthalia sir has been a pillar of support. Since the management encourages sports, players get to participate in many tournaments and excel. ,” said Amutha, a former athlete.
In this academic year (2022-2023), overall 90 students and nine sportswomen have participated in All-India inter-university tournaments and 49 have won medals. “We also search for talented sports persons who are poor and underprivileged within Tamil Nadu and grant them admission through our sports quota. We provide admission to 180 students through sports quota and 120 students get 100 per cent scholarship. We provide hostel facilities for 45 students,” she added.
The star athletes under sports quota include R Vaishali (chess), M Nithyashree (table tennis), Anupama Ramachandran (billiards & snooker), NL Vacasya (artistic roller skating), Lavanya Nambiar (rowing), Nitheesha Rajesh (badminton), Arshi Choudhary (cricket), Ishwarya & Monica Jayaseeli (basketball), Harshini Saravanan and Sherin Andrea (athletics).
The college conducts various tournaments and provides coaching for their students regularly despite not having a ground.