KOOH Sports finds Mumbai's Speedstars, 8 fastest sprinters of the city will compete in national face-off

Winners from Mumbai

KOOH Sports brings the 2nd edition of the national level talent hunt for India’s fastest and youngest running sensations in 60 meter and 100 meter sprint.

• Brand ambassador, PT Usha will mentor the winners
• With Speedstar Season 1 KOOH Sports reached out to 40,000 kids
• Winners will get a chance to train with Sharon Hannan (world renowned Australian coach and ex-coach of London Olympics 2012 Gold medalist Sally Pearson) in Australia

KOOH Sports launched the second season of “Speedstar”, a nationwide talent hunt for the young flying Indian. KOOH Sports is a new age Sports Company set up with a passion to get kids of today to embrace sport and more importantly a healthier lifestyle.

On 11th January 2014, Speedstar Season 2 kicked off the heats in 2 cities – Mumbai and Goa.

2500 kids registered in the Mumbai city heat and the exciting day ended with the Speedstar team finding their top 8 runners-

Sr. No.	Name	Category	Age Group	Time
1	SRUSHTI SHETTY	Girls	Under 10	9.45	seconds
2	ISHITA DESHMUKH	Girls	Under 12	14.28	seconds
3	TANVI BHARAT PATIL	Girls	Under 14	13.69	seconds
4	MARIYA KARACHIWALA-	Girls	Under 16	13.13	seconds
5	URVISH POKHRIYAL	Boys	Under 10	8.76	seconds
6	SAPTASRHI DAS	Boys	Under 12	14.03	seconds
7	PREET SURVE	Boys	Under 14	12.67	seconds
8	MARK D’COSTA	Boys	Under 16	12.03	seconds

Speedstar Brand Ambassador - India’s most successful sprinter P. T. Usha, who shared her excitement at the end of the city heat, “I have been associated with Speedstar for two years now. It’s great to see that an organisation like KOOH Sports has come forward to promote athletics at grassroots level and with proper training and guidance these kids can do very well in the field of athletics. We witnessed a phenomenal talent pool at the first season of Speedstar, and after the success of the Mumbai Heat, I am sure this season is going to be bigger.”

Prabhu Srinivasan, CEO- KOOH Sports: “Speedstar was conceptualized in 2012 with intent to motivate kids and encourage schools to partake in athletics. The ‘Speedstar’ initiative is a movement to generate interest and awareness for the most natural form of sport – Running. With the hunt we would like to bring the concept of “athlete first, sportsman later” in the mainstream sports training. The first season witnessed an overwhelming response and we came across kids with huge potential. This year we will be considering adopting talent for further education/training in athletics.”

Air Marshal Denzil Keelor, Chairman, Special Olympics Bharat: “We are very excited to be a part of Speedstar. Our association with KOOH Sports is forged to support each other for unified development of sports at the grass root levels in India. Our movement at SOB uses sports as a catalyst to transform the lives of children with intellectual disability. Through initiatives like Speedstar our children will get a great platform to showcase their talent.”

About Speedstar Season 2:

Sharon Hannan (world renowned Australian coach and ex-coach of London Olympics 2012 Gold medalist Sally Pearson) is the Mentor of Speedstar event. This event is held under the aegis of Athletics Federation of India (AFI).

Moreover, with Speedstar season 2, KOOH Sports for the first time in India, will bring forth a unified athletics event in partnership with Special Olympics Bharat- a sports body dedicated to intellectually disabled children.

Speedstar Season 2 will identify 8 of the fastest boys and girls under 4 age categories (Under 10, 12, 14, 16) in the country. In this edition, Speedstar will conduct the event across 11 cities- Delhi, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Lucknow, Jalandhar, Pune, Goa, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad.

The winners from each city will be called for the finale to be held on February 9th, 2014 in Mumbai. The final winners of Speedstar season 2 will get a chance to train in Australia with Sharon Hannan. Griffith University will host the winners and also conduct master classes for them.