Two Sundays ago... ... 44 Pudiyador teenagers in Chennai woke up at 4 am to travel by bus to Auroville for an all-day Ultimate tournament. Pudiyador is an NGO that provides after-school education, sports and arts programs across Chennai and in 2013 began two teen programs - one in Urur Kuppam/Besant Nagar and one in Ramapuram. Many of the teens began playing Ultimate in May 2013 and participated in an exhibition tournament in Chennai Heat 2013. However, this is the first tournament theyve participated in another city. Auroville fielded two teams for the tournament and matched up well against the Chennai teams. After an intense day of play the Flying Spies from Urur Kuppam won the tournament and celebrated by lungi dancing for hours on the bus ride home. Many thanks to Kumaran, Ashwin, Eugene, Shrishti, Smiti, Aurevan, and other wonderful AV folks whose names I dont know (apologies!) and Airborne (Chiai, Manix, Nishanth, Prem, Rahul, Box) for chaperoning, coaching and playing throughout the day. Special thanks to Kumaran for all the prep work leading up to the tournament and hosting us for the day long event. We hope to have Auroville come to Chennai in the coming months to see how the teams match up on the sand! **************************************************************** Liz Haynes, the author, is the Sports Program Manager at Pudiyador, Chennai. She has been a multi-sport athlete since age 6 and has played competitive soccer, basketball, lacrosse, and recently ultimate with CUF. After a 2 year stint on Wall Street, she worked on the Hurricane Katrina reconstruction in New Orleans and has been working at Pudiyador since last September.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 05:21:59 +0000
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