Sports enthusiasts generously opened their purses in the sports charity auction hosted by GoSports Foundation and sports memorabilia auctioneer Collectabillia at a city hotel here on Saturday.
The event featured the “Stuff of Legends” — a select catalogue of items that included autographed memorabilia of sporting icons like Rahul Dravid, Cristiano Ronaldo and Diego Maradona, among others.
Every item sold that evening funded GoSports Foundation’s PACE Scholarship Program for junior Olympic and Paralympic talent.
The programme currently supports 21 athletes from across the country, providing monetary support as well as non-monetary assistance in the form of access to empanelled experts across various areas of specialisation. In addition to the auction, the event included interactions with tennis star Ramesh Krishnan and former India hockey captain V. Bhaskaran.
Peek into life of athletes
Nandan Kamath, Managing Trustee, GoSports Foundation said, “As our nation’s contingent returns from these Olympics with it’s richest-ever medal haul, the preparations for the next two Olympics have already begun.
“Through this event, we provided sports lovers from Chennai a peek into the life and world of young high-performance athletes and an opportunity to actively support them while collecting unique memorabilia of international sporting legends.”
Anjana Reddy, CEO, Universal Collectabillia Pvt. Ltd. said, “We had sourced some iconic items for this auction and are delighted that the new owners of these items have not only added to their personal collections, but have also supported young sporting talent in the country.”
TN Aces wins
TN Aces defeated Nest Inn by 14 IMPs in a closely contested title-match in the 35th Ramaratnam memorial bridge tournament, which concluded on Sunday.
The Aces team comprised Leela Iyengar, R. Rajkumar, Sreenivasagam, R. Prahalad, and B.S. Madhukar, while Nest Inn had in its team N. Niranjan, R. Kanan, K.R. Venkataraman, N.R. Kirupakaramoorthy, D. Vijaya and S.R.C. Sekar.
Earlier in the semifinals, TN Aces overwhelmed Sunshine team (Farooq Dhadabhoy, Ms. Srihari Varhese, Sunil Varghese, Ms. Sherien Ryan, L. Subramanian and Nirmal Jain), while Nest Inn got the better of RECTians (K. Kanan, Sajiv Menon, R. Kalyan, K.C. Sekhar and Suresh Jutur).
In the Ramasundaram Trophy for Board-a-match event, Arun’s team consisting of K. Arun Kumar, S. Ganesan, C. Vijay Kumar and S. Ganapathy won the title.
The runners-up were Cool Vijay (S. Vijayraghavan, G. Rajagopal, P.S. Asokan, V. Ramkumar). Ramamurthy’s team (K. Ramamurthy, P. Narayan Iyer, B. Ram Mohan Rao and L. Ravichandran) finished third, while Budding Young Players (Hindushree and S. Jayashree, with Balagurunathan and A. Sridhar) finished fourth.
The prizes were given away by P.B. Santhakrishnan, Vice-President, Mylapore Club, and R. Narayanswami, son of late Ramaratnam, in whose memory the tournament is conducted annually.
Other result:
G.N. Chari memorial Silver Salver for pair event: North-South: 1. T.R. Krishnan & Lakshmi Chari; 2. Santhalakshmi & C. Satish Kumar; 3. T. Karthik & K.Vijayshankar.
East-West: 1. S. Raghuraman & T.T. Chari; 2. J.P. James & M. Sridhar; 3. R. David & C.K. Sridhar.
Sanjay shines
M.S. Sanjay took four for 33 as Santhome HSS ‘A’ defeated Vidya Mandir SSS ‘A’ by nine wickets in the TNCA City Schools Coca Cola cricket tournament here.
The scores:
Vidya Mandir SSS ‘A’ 77 in 40.4 overs (C. Shiva Narayan 25, P. Ajith Kumar three for nine, M.S. Sanjay four for 33) lost to Santhome HSS ‘A’ 83 for one in 9.3 overs (C. Karthik 60); Chettinad Vidyashram ‘A’ 280 for eight in 50 overs (Vignesh U. Mahesh 35, Pradhan Bharath 40, Shyaam Sundar 31, K.R. Abhishek 26, Anirudh Sengupta 32, Samruddh Bhat 35, R. Ankit three for 65) bt Doveton Boys HSS 94 in 36.5 overs (R. Ankit 45, S. Sidharth three for 15, Pradhan Bharath three for 12).
Nitish advances
Nitish Steve of Loyola ICAM College of Engineering overcame Jerard Ambrose (Anna University) 8-6 in a first-round tennis match of the Betram memorial tournaments at the Loyola College, here on Monday.
Other results:
Tennis: First round): R. Tarun (Bishop Heber, Tiruchi) bt Vishal Jaithra (Anna MIT) 8-1; Dhakshinaswaran (Velammal) bt K. Koushik (Vidya Mandir) 8-1; Ram Narayanamurthy (PSBB) bt Sathiyanthan (Sri Shankara) 8-1; Jugal Dughar (PSBB) bt Chrispin Anto (St. Vincent) 8-1; V. Rohit (HCCV) bt S. Saravanan (Loyola) 8-0.
J. Harish Kumar (PP) bt Raguraman (Sherwood HSS) 8-0; Arun Srivats (Anna) bt S. Narayana (Loyola) 8-2; Tejumoi (St. Bede’s) bt Vikram Dhananjain (SBOA) 8-5; Gugan Rajan (PSBB) bt Vishal 8-0; Siddarth Arya (SCRHAM) bt Delphin (LICET) 8-1.
Aravind triumphs
B. Aravind (KPC) defeated V. Abhinay (Modern) 11-9, 12-10, 11-3 in the senior boys’ final of the Gymnco-Jussportz inter-school table tennis tournament at the Nehru Stadium in Chennai on Sunday.
