By Kirti Patil
Pune: After an overwhelming response in 2022 the Sports for all S(FA) is back again is on its mission to revolutionize school sporting competition
“After a phenomenal debut, SFA Championships are back for the 2nd edition in Pune,” announced Rajas Joshi, COO, Sports for All (SFA),
The SFA Championship in Pune will be held from November 20 to December 5.
SFA’s mission is to discover the number one school in sports
The SFA Championships are India’s largest school-level multi sports competition that encourage youth to unleash their sporting potential by providing them an Olympic-style sporting platform. Since inception in 2015, SFA has enabled its tech IP platform for 200,000 athletes through 12 SFA Championships across geographies.
Speaking about Pune, in its 2022 debut season, the city witnessed participation of more than 8,000 students from over 500 schools. With 53 medals, Balewadi-based PICT Model School emerged as Pune’s leading school for sports. Football and athletics were found to be the most popular choice of sports. In fact, the city’s sporting ecosystem witnessed a steady increase in women participation, where 30% of the athlete pool at SFA Championships was dominated by girl athletes.
Rajas Joshi, COO, Sports for All (SFA), expressed, “We continue to strengthen our commitment to transform the country’s sporting culture at the grassroots and augment the sporting DNA by encouraging young athletes to play as many sports as they can. Our unique championship platform enables youth to get a glimpse of an Olympics-style competition. We are working towards contributing to the holistic development of the ecosystem and realise the country’s quest for gold.”
In order to encourage young athletes to participate and play multiple sports, SFA identifies the ‘Golden Boy and Golden girl’, celebrating athletes that have won more than one medal (usually gold), in multi-sports. In 2022, PICT model school’s Jainam Singhavi and Rajlakshmi Chavan were crowned as the SFA Golden Boy and Golden girl. They both outperformed their competition in Athletics and Football winning 2 medals each.
Since 2015, SFA has conducted 12 Championships in Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, and Dehradun (Uttarakhand), across 28-30 sports, with a cumulative participation of 200,000 athletes and more than 4000 schools. In addition, the 36th National Games, Gujarat, 2022 and Khelo India Youth Games, Haryana, 2021 were powered by the SFA’s tech IP Games Management System (GMS). In 2023, SFA signed a sponsorship for the Khelo India Youth Games. The vision is to make SFA Championships the nervous system for discovering sporting potential at the school-level and groom future champions, through capabilities in tech and data analytics.
About Sports For All (SFA)
Sports For All (SFA) is India’s largest tech-enabled multi-sport grassroots competition platform.
The uniqueness of SFA is that it puts all the data of every participating athlete online. Even though the athlete would have competed as under-12, his or her records will remain on website for reference. At a much later date the athlete could refer to the records or even up date it after proper authorisation.
The vision of the organization is to make youth fall in love with sports through inspiring and joyful sporting experiences. Founders Rishikesh Joshi and Vishwas Choksi, since the inception of SFA in 2015, have determinedly focused on transforming sporting championships at the grassroots level, by providing an inclusive, diverse, safe, and best in class platform for the youth to realise their fullest potential through sports.
The SFA Championships were instituted to showcase the potential of large-scale multi-sporting competitions propelled with tech and data analytics. Being phygital in nature, the SFA Championships have today become the backbone of identifying sporting potential at the grassroots level. Since 2015, SFA has enabled 12 Championships at Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, and Uttarakhand, across 28 sporting disciplines, with participation of 200,000 athletes and more than 4000 schools.
SFA, is the leading sports entrepreneurial venture empanelled with the Sports Authority of India (SAI), official partner of Team India under the aegis of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) and are sponsors for Khelo India Youth Games, beginning from the Madhya Pradesh, 2023 (for the next five years, until 2028 editions).
The 36th National Games, Gujarat, 2022 and Khelo India Youth Games, Haryana, 2021 were powered by the SFA’s Games Management System (the tech IP), as part of the Services portfolio. Previously, SFA has also managed editions of Khelo India Youth Games in Pune, Guwahati, and Panchkula.
Today SFA is the go-to solution architect for all major sports activations across the Government and corporate projects. www.sfaplay.com
