It’s our pleasure to announce that, Riya Kurian of NVBS got first time to represent India in an International event and in the first participation itself she had won the Silver Medal for India in Under-15 Girls Singles. Riya represented INDIA in the Bahrain Junior International Series 2023 for under-15 Girls singles event at Manama, Bahrain from 19th to 24th September 2023. Riya lost in Finals with a tough match against the first seeded player in Under-15 Girls Single of the tournament, Taralaxmi Karthikeyan from UAE (United Arab Emirates). Score :- 17-21 & 18-21
13 years old Riya Kurian is studying in Grade VIII (M – Division) in Birla Public School, Doha Qatar. She is born & bought up from Puthupally, Kottayam (District), Kerala, India.It is really dream come true moment for Riya as well as for NVBS. It was one of her valuable dream to wear the “INDIA” jersey to represent the nation in an International Platform. That dream got achieved by her on 19th of September 2023 by playing her first International with INDIA jersey.
NVBS sincerely thanking Trivandrum District Badminton Association ( TDBSA), Kerala Badminton Shuttle Association (KBSA) & BADMINTON ASSO-CIATION OF INDIA(BAI) for the support given for Riya to par-ticipate this International event. On 3rd December 2018 Riya Kurian started badminton training for the first time in NVBS Branch- Cambridge Boys School, Al – Maamoura under the NVBS Chief Coach Manoj Sahibjan.
In the beginning time her parents opted weekly 2 days training for her and that was for engaging her in a physical activity. Later on continuing her training, coach Manoj Sahibjan itself identified her caliber and he got to know that, focusing her in this sport definitely she could reach to a great level with achievements.
Based on that thought on Riya’s Career, chief coach had a healthy discussion with Riya’s parents. Finally they started sending her weekly 4 days training program after 1 year. As she got some more con-tinuity in training, she had started improving her skills through the training and she got more interest towards bad-minton sport. Later on with coach’s advice Riya started attending weekly 6 days training and along with on-court 6 days training she had started attending morning fitness training session. From that time itself Riya’s interest towards game, her dedication, & commitment towards the game was excellent. She had started dreaming about her badminton career and one day Riya’s mother (Mrs. RINKU MARIAM JOHN) sent a photo to chief coach.
That was her drawing on 6th April 2020, in which she had drawn herself wearing India Jersey and playing badminton for India. The reason for drawing such a picture was, in the school her class teacher asked her that,
“what is your ambition?” She answered for that question with her drawing about her dream and that photo is printed with this article. That dream came true for her now through this first International Participation through NVBS.By following the right path shown by her coaches with support of her parents she had started developing her bad-minton career from NVBS.
In the beginning period of her badminton career devel-opment itself she had lost her training continuity due to Covid situation almost 2 years. From there she had restarted her training after the COVID situ-ation under Head coach Afsal & through his training she started her career journey again under the guidance of Chief coach. We had started making tournament experience for her by making her participate tournaments within Qatar and in other GCC countries. As chief coach Manoj Sahibjan was aware about the proper channel to reach to international level, based on his advice NVBS made her an authorized player by registering her in Trivandrum District under Kerala Badminton Shuttle Association (KBSA), India.
As Trivandrum District is having a lot of talented badminton players and as it is a compet-itive district for badminton sport in Kerala, NVBS registered her there in Trivandrum Dis-trict. Building a career among a competitive place will helps her to develop more higher
she won the under-13 girls singles in the Trivandrum Dis-trict Badminton Championship 2022, held at Jose George Bad-minton Academy, Kowdiar Palace, Trivandrum, Kerala, India on 23rd July 2022 and she got selected in Trivandrum Dis-trict team to represent the dis-trict for the state championship. It was a quick improvement for her within a short span of time immediately after COVID situ-ation.
Also in a Major event , PNB MetLife Junior Badminton Championship, Riya won the Silver Medal in under-13 girls single event, held at VKN Menon Indoor Stadium, Thrissur, Kerala, India from 18th to 21st September 2022. Along with that she had participated in state ranking tournaments and in her under-15 category first year itself she had reached to Quarter Finals in state champi-onship tournament. That is a great achievement for a player in her age and also in that tour-nament she had won against the state champion( Neha R Shenoy ) of previous state ranking tour-nament in under-15 Girls singles in Pre-quarters of state cham-pionship 2023. Same way for creating National ranking points, we had made her par-ticipate continuous National ranking badminton tourna-ments and she had reached till 28th rank in Under-15 Girls singles in All India level. That ranking helped her to get the entry for this Bahrain Junior International Series, 2023 All these tournament
participation were came up only because of the proper guidance & path shown by NVBS man-agement and her performance came up because of her coach Afsal’s dedication & com-mitment in training. Same time we can’t forget the role of her parents behind her. Even in their hard situations like financial situation, her exam times etc. They had taken a huge effort and they had played a major role as support for giving her reach to represent India. We all salute her parents( Father – Mr. Gethesh Kurian & Mother – Mrs. Rinku Mariam John) for their ultimate patience the way they had followed NVBS management’s advices.
Even NVBS had a lot of highly talented players and they were performing and talented than Riya Kurian. But many of those players are not even there in this sport. That is due to the lack of knowledge in the path which they needs to follow, parents unwanted involvement in their kids training schedule, because of the continuous shifting of academy & coaches etc. All those player’s parents were not willing to follow the proper channel advised by the organization in which those kids were doing sports training. Rather than following those advices, they had taken their own individual decisions for their kids sports career and ulti-mately without any achieve-ments many parents stopped their kids respective sports training. This is what happened
n many of those our old players. Therefore our deep request to all the parents and especially currently performing player’s parents that, always follow the right path shown by the organization with patience. Parents may have a lot of knowledge in different aspects, but badminton organizations have the complete knowledge related to badminton sport & badminton players career.
Respecting the organization and following their advices will take your kids always to heights in the sport. Please don’t make your kids into failure condition by taking individual decisions with little knowledge on their sports career in the right age. Same time tournament partic-ipation is the most important and unavoidable part in each and every player’s career. Doing training for long long years and not willing to make your wards participate in tournaments, will demolish their career devel-opment and also their identity won’t come out in the particular sport event.
These are the major role of parents to be taken care in your kids sports career devel-opment. Said by Sahibjan. Based on his 29 years coaching expe-rience he shared the above advices.We the complete NVBS family is extremely happy on Riya’s first representation for India in an International tour-nament and in that first tour-nament itself Riya had won the Silver medal. This is not a small task or small achievement.
But this is a huge achievement in Riya Kurian’s Badminton career. Through this medal she had stepped into world badminton map. Parent’s sincere support through following the right path shown by the chief coach without keep changing the academy and coaches made her journey smooth. Same time coach Afsal’s focused, dedicated and committed training for her helped her to reach this level. Also we thank her School man-agement for their support for Riya which helped her to attend continuous training. Said by Manoj Sahibjan.
NVBS is completely spon-soring Riya and her entire family for this International tournament in Bahrain and the whole family is happy on that. Earlier itself many times Riya got eligible for NVBS tour-nament Sponsorship through her performance and again NVBS completely sponsored Riya & her family for this tour-nament because of her great achievement in International Platform.Chief Coach Manoj Sahibjan & Head Coach Afsal O K accom-panied Riya Kurian for her first International Participation at Bahrain. Currently Riya’s training is going on under Head coach Afsal for her upcoming National and International tour-naments.
As Riya had entered in the BWF circuit we had planned to make her participate in upcoming BWF domestic tournament & BWF Interna-tional tournaments if she will be able to handle her studies & badminton side by side with the support of her school. For her further badminton career development and for popular-izing her identity in the bad-minton circuit, those BWF domestic tournament & BWF International tournament par-ticipations is most important, said Manoj.
