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What's the story?
The annual sports day of St. Anthony's School in Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu turned out to be truly a sporting one as it named its houses after three sporting legends, Sania Mirza, Cristiano Ronaldo and PV Sindhu. The school has taken a great initiative in this regard and Sania Mirza personally thanked the person who brought this news into light.
In case you didn't know
Portugal and Real Madrid legend Cristiano Ronaldo has a galaxy named after him with the name of Cosmos Redshift 7 which denotes his popular name CR7. He has also been named the world's most charitable athlete a number of times. Sania Mirza has also been named as the UN Goodwill Ambassador in past.
The heart of the matter
All three sportsmen have been one of the most distinguished ones in their respective sports. Cristiano Ronaldo is the highest goal scorer for Real Madrid and Portugal national football team. He is also the second highest goal scorer in La Liga after Lionel Messi and a 4 times UCL champion and recently won the Euro Cup with Portugal in 2016. Sania Mirza has been the highest ranked Indian Women's Singles(WR#27) and Doubles player(WR#9) till date.
PV Sindhu hit the headlines in Rio 2016 Olympics as she won the Silver medal in Women's singles badminton and has won a number of international tournaments since then. Both Sania and Sindhu have been awarded with the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award which is the highest sporting honor in India.
These achievements makes them well deserving for another relatively small but a very special honor as very young children will get to wear the names of their sporting heroes. The school has also set an example on the lines of gender equality by having houses named after both male and female sportspeople.
What's next?
This initiative by St. Anthony's School tries to bring sports at the very grassroots of the country and highlights some real heroes in front of children who may aspire to take up sports as their career in future.
This should inspire every educational institution in the country to take up sports seriously and give them equal weight age to academics for the overall growth of students.
Author's Take
This is a small step by the school but may turn out to be a giant step for the condition of sports in the country as it can trigger a lot of inspiration among all age groups.
