A youngster takes a shot at the ball during fitness tests for the soccer meet. Picture by Srinivas

Jamshedpur, March 28: The heat had no effect on the enthusiasm and spirits of special children who lined up at the JRD Tata Sports Complexthis afternoon for the various qualifying fitness tests for Soccer Carnival-2005, which starts tomorrow.

About 100 special children participated in the tests, which included penalty shootouts, run-ups, sit-ups and push-ups under the supervision of coaches and officials from the Tata Steel sports department.

The participants were from different city-based schools working for the welfare of special children.

Soccer Carnival-2005 is being organised by Tata Steel sports department in association with the Lions Club of Jamshedpur. The event will be inaugurated by police superintendent Sanjay Anand Lathkar.

Over 12 teams from the steel city, Ranchi and Bokaro are expected to participate in the carnival, which will test the skills and footwork of the kids in this extreme heat.

The event has been divided into three categories of participants ? intellectually-disabled children (higher and lower ability groups), hearing impaired children (under and above-15 age group) and visually-impaired. The latter would be involved only in the penalty shootouts in the matches.

Over 90 special children from Asha Kiran, School of Hope, START, Kitadih Community Centre, Deepshikha (Ranchi) and Ashalata (Bokaro) will be participating in the carnival. All matches will be for a duration of seven minutes.

According to senior sports department official Charles Borromeo, the children from Ranchi and Bokaro will be reaching the city by tomorrow morning. They will stay at the residential wing of the JRD Tata Sports Complex.

He added that this year?s carnival has witnessed an increase in the number of participants.

?This shows that the children are showing more interest towards sports,? added Borromeo, a former athlete and national sports director of Special Olympics Bharat.