(From left) Puroshottam Singhdeo, Achal Gaurav, Tushar Das, Putul Das and Alpana Kumari Mishra share a light moment. Picture by Srinivas

Jamshedpur, April 2: Seven special children from Jharkhand, including six from the steel city itself, have found a place in the list of probables in floor hockey category for the World Winter Games to be held in United States in 2009.

The lucky seven won their spots because of their energetic performance at the Floor Hockey Nationals, where the state team bagged the silver medal in both the boys and girls’ categories.

The tournament was held in Shimla from January 27 to February 2, 2008.

At the Shimla tournament, the youngsters caught the eye of experts of three important bodies — Special Olympics, Bharat, Sports Authority of India and Special Olympics, Asia Pacific.

The youngsters would now have to ready themselves for two gruelling preparatory camps, scheduled to be held before the 2009 world tournament.

“We recently received intimation regarding the move,” said Avtar Singh, the regional camp co-ordinator of the eastern and northeastern states of Special Olympics, Bharat.

At the Shimla meet, the state boys’ team had defeated Uttaranchal and Gujarat, before losing out to Karnataka, the girls had championed over Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh before losing out to Delhi.

The names of players who made it to the list of probables are Achal Gaurav, Putul Das, Tushar Das, Puroshottam Singhdeo, Alpana Kumari Mishra, Ganga Bai and Chandan.

Puroshottam Singhdeo and Tushar Das are from the Telco-based Asha Kiran School, while Achal Gaurav is from the School of Hope.

Alpana Kumari Mishra and Ganga Bai are from the School of Hope while Putul is from Asha Kiran.

The lone player to be selected from outside the steel city is Chandan, who is a student of Ranchi’s Deepshikha.

“I am very happy and will put in extra hard work to ensure a place in the final squad,” said Alpana, in a broken sentence, as she posed for a picture with the rest of the team at the JRD Tata Sports Complex.

The steel city athletes get together for special training sessions at the complex regularly.

“It is definitely a great moment for all us. We never expected so many names to be shortlisted from this single city alone,” said Avatar Singh.

After the selection of the probable players, what is awaited is the announcement of list of names of coaches and managers who would be accompanying the special children to North America.

Shimla seems set to host the first preparatory camp in July, while the venue for the second camp is yet to be decided.

The final list of selected players for the 2009 World Winter Games would be based on the players’ performance at the camps.