DPS Sharjah wins quiz on Olympics

What did the King of Morocco do to honour Nawal El Moutawakel, the first female Muslim born on the continent of Africa to become an Olympic gold medallist?

Young students of Our Own English High School, Fujairah, did not blink even once before they answered: “He declared that all girls born the day of her victory were to be named in her honour”.

Gearing up for the London Olympics 2012 fever, Quiz Dubai with the support of Visa and Emirates NBD organised the first-ever Olympic theme-based quiz for school students in the UAE. Close to 300 students from 25 schools participated in the quiz.

Six teams made it to the finals, with Delhi Public School, Sharjah, coming first, Our Own English High School, Fujairah, second, Our Own English High School, Sharjah (boys), third; and Dubai Modern High School fourth.

Madhu Singal (15), Radhakrishnan Venkatraman (17) and Devank Tyagi (16) represented Delhi Private School, Sharjah. The boys said they felt like they were on top of the world. “We enjoy quiz a lot,” said Tyagi. “The trick is to keep track of all current affairs and reading newspapers everyday. Since the quiz had an Olympic theme, we used Wikipedia and several quiz books for reference,” said Singal. “We had about three days to prepare for the quiz and our exams were around the corner, but it’s our passion for quiz that helped us prepare for it.”

Students of Dubai Modern High School, Dubai — Pranav Shankar (15), Anjaneya Malpavi (15) and Shreyas Ravishankar (16) — said they had prepared very hard for the quiz. “We learned of the quiz about two weeks back and we prepared ourselves with books about the Olympics. We are also avid sports fans,” said Shankar. “If only cricket was a part of the Olympics, we would have done very well,” joked the boys. They opined that the questions for the quiz were very workable and coming in fourth for the competition has encouraged them immensely. “We will keep taking part in quizzes now,” said the boys.

Robin Mukherjee, Area Manager of Visa Middle East, said: “The quiz is very exciting for us. We are one of the major sponsors of the upcoming London Olympics and this is an excellent platform for us to get our company involved with the younger generation. We also want to stress on the importance of financial literacy among students.”

R. Sivaram, Senior VP, Head of Cards, Emirates NBD, said: “This is the first school quiz organised by Quiz Dubai. This is an interest group formed by seven to eight core members belonging to various professions who meet every month and partake in quizzes. We want to encourage youngsters to take part in quizzes. The turnout for this quiz was really good and we are looking forward to make this an annual event.”

Quiz master C. K. Jaidev said: “The students were brilliant. Their level of awareness is really good. They had prepared themselves very well.”

dhanusha@khaleejtimes.com