International Indian School, Jeddah (IISJ) emerged overall champions in the girls section of the 18th Cluster Meet for the CBSE-affiliated Indian Schools in Saudi Arabia at International Indian School Dammam recently. Hosts IIS Dammam became the overall cluster meet champion 2008-09 while IISJ stood runner-up. The Jeddah boys and girls finished overall runner-up to Dammam in athletics also. The IISJ girls stamped their supremacy in the cluster meet mainly through the stellar performance of their athletes and table tennis stars. While athletes claimed the overall championship their table tennis counterparts clinched honors in the Under 19 and Under 16 teams' sections. Perennial champions Shaima Mohammed and Niveditha Sethumadhavan dazzled in the Under 19 and Under 16 sections by emerging individual champions while Safa Siraj took the honors in the Under 14 section. Kulsoom Mahfooz Ali also shared individual honors with Shaima in the U-19 section. Shaima and Niveditha have been individual champions ever since both these girls began taking part in their annual school meet and the cluster meet so far. Shaima claimed gold in 800m and 4x400m and took silver in 200m, 400m and 4x100m and bronze in long jump whereas a middle distance specialist Niveditha won 400m, 800m and 4x400m and claimed second place in 200m and 4x100m. Kulsoom won gold in 200m, 4x400m, silver in 100m and long jump and bronze in 400m. Safa emerged as the star in her section by winning 400m and 4x400m, finishing second in long jump and claiming bronze in 100m, 200m and 4x100m. In table tennis, Shaima Shoukat and Abeeha Beg took individual honors in U-19 and Maryam Sadiq and Salma Mujtaba emerged champions in U-16. Maryam and Salma have been dominating the Cluster Meet ever since they began to represent their school. Zareena Sultana of the Physical Education Department is the table tennis coach of the IISJ girls. All the individual champions are eligible to take part in the CBSE National Championship to be held in India this month. Along with Shaima and Aabeeha, Sara Ather and Huda Abdul Samad have qualified to take part in the nationals in India. In the U-16, Sabah Najam and Zaina Salim also will join Maryam and Salma for the nationals which will be held in Gurgaon in Haryana on Dec. 14-19. The athletic meet will be held in Maysena in Gujarat. The IISJ boys, who retained their basketball title in the cluster meet, will be taking part in the nationals to be held in Nagpur. Along with Principal-in-Charge Syed Masood Ahmed the teachers who trained and accompanied the IISJ contingent were Zareena Sultana, Ranjit Kaur and Farhana Khatoon (girls section) and Ghouse Mohiuddin, Abdul Rasheed Alikkal, Mohammed Ameeruddin and Mohammed Adil (boys section). __
