Maiden edition of Puma’s 'School of Speed' a success

St. Joseph’s Girls High School won the Senior Category girls trophy, and Aquileena William won the ‘Speedcat’ award for being the Fastest Senior Girl

Bangalore: The maiden edition of Puma’s School of Speed event was flagged off by the coach of the Bengaluru FC, Ashley Westwood this morning.

The Puma School of Speed event is a 4×1 km relay race for children in the age group of 13 to 16, where the teams compete for the title of the fastest school. Following today’s event in Bangalore, the Mumbai leg of the competition is scheduled to be conducted on 9th February, while the Delhi edition would be on 15th.

The teams were categorized into two sections – juniors and seniors. Students of grades 7 and 8 comprised the juniors, while those currently studying in grades 9 and 10 were classified as seniors. The event managed to attract a massive group of enthusiastic children, with over 300 teams from schools all over Bangalore city.

Sacred Hearts Boys High School bagged the first prize in the senior boys’ division, while the junior boys’ category was won by Karumbiah’s Academy of Learning. St. Josephs Girls School was crowned first in senior girls, while the Oxford English Higher Primary School was the fastest school among junior girls.

The winners from the senior boys’ and girls’ categories from Bangalore and Mumbai will travel to Delhi for the National Race on 15th. The winners of the National Race will get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet the fastest man on the planet, Usain Bolt.

Ashley Westwood, coach of the Bengaluru FC, strikes a Bolt pose with participants of PUMA School of Speed

In an exclusive chat with Sportskeeda, Abhishek Ganguly, the Executive Director of Sales and Retail in Puma’s South Asia division said, “We believe in performance and running, and want to ensure that running as a sport and as a culture is taken more seriously in India.” He believes that the tremendous potential of the youth in India was going untapped, which inspired the idea of School of Speed.

Ganguly is of the opinion that conducting more events like School of Speed would be the best way forward to popularize running as a culture. “We need to do things to make it competitive; make it look interesting. We need to provide sufficient incentives and fairly acknowledge and recognize all the people who actually come in here and participate.”

When asked about the future of athletics in India, Ganguly was quite positive. “I’ve noticed that a lot of school children these days are moving away from cricket and have started following football and athletics a lot more. From a growth perspective, these are the sports to watch out for.”