KOCHI: The 58th Kerala State School Athletics Championship did not offer to crumble any sports empire. It just conformed to the general character of the last five years’ trend, which has more or less limited the competition to just two of the 14 districts in fray - Ernakulam and Palakkad.
Unsurprisingly, Ernakulam retained the overall championship with 289 points, pushing Palakkad with 190 points to the runners-up spot, and replicated the top order of last year’s point table. Again, like last year and the years before that, the two Kothamangalam schools, St George’s HSS and Mar Basil HSS, harvested the most number of the medals for Ernakulam.
St George’s HSS lifted the best school title, scoring 83 points - just one point more than rival Mar Basil HSS. So what makes it possible for Ernakulam to remain on top of table consistently for years together? “Because, there are competent athletes in all the events for Ernakulam, right from the sub-junior category to the senior category,” said former physical education coach of Mar Basil HSS P I Babu.
“Also, the coaching methodology employed by the top-performing schools in the district is a lot more qualitative than those of other schools, may be certain exceptions like the Government HSS in Parli,” Babu, who this time came along with Government VHSS, Mathirappilly, which turned heads by clinching the fifth spot after fielding just 15 athletes.