Lipton Clear Green girls basketball tournament creates excitement amongst youth in KSA

Jeddah witnessed an extensive and exciting basketball tournament from the 25^th June until the 26th of June. The tournament attracted participants from 20 different teams comprising of university students and private school teams who competed against each other to reach the semi finals on the first day of the tournament. The four qualifying teams played on 26th June, for the semi final match and eventually the two teams competed in the finals. The tournament organized by Jeddah United and sponsored by Lipton Clear Green aims to encourage the youth in the Kingdom to live an active and healthy lifestyle.  Children’s World School team was entitled as winners after a very exciting game with the three semi final teams.

The tournament served as a platform to sharpen skills of the young Saudi female athletes giving them an opportunity to participate and play their favorite sport with the support of two media teams who also participated in the tournament in an effort to encourage Saudi females to become more active. The participants sharpened their time management skills, planning skills, and leadership skills through their participation in the tournament.

This Basketball tournament, initiated by Lipton Clear Green, is a way to encourage Saudi female youth to play sports and live a more active lifestyle. “The event received a great response from the participants and the spectators this year. Such activities help the youth realize the importance of time management and teach them skills that they will find useful in their daily lives.” states Toufic Elakhrass, F&B Marketing Director, Unilever Saudi Arabia.  

Muna Siraj, a Journalists & member of the media team said “We participated in this’ year tournament to emphasize on empowering Saudi females, and to highlight the productive role women play in  Saudi society, and through such events and tournament , maybe generating and/or discovering female Saudi players with Olympic potential to compete in national and international events”. 

This year’s event saw a great deal of enthusiasm among the participants, the girls surely practiced more and the audience witnessed challenging matches. The Media game was a new addition along with audience shooting which made the entire tournament an interesting one.  Our aim is to create awareness among the Saudi female youth that would encourage them to live a healthy and active lifestyle “said Lina Al Maeena. 

The captain of Children’s World School team said “We are thrilled to have won. This competition was incredibly competitive and required a great deal of effort and skill. It is wonderful to see that our hard work has paid off and we will prepare ourselves more for the next tournament, we thank Jeddah United for hosting the event and Lipton Clear Green for encouraging Saudi females to live a healthy and active lifestyle”.

Maha Al Shikh , a journalist & Captain of the media team said” It was a pleasure for us as media representatives from different publications to participate in this year’s tournament, I believe that such tournaments will give the Saudi females the opportunity to live an active and healthy lifestyle and to present the Saudi Female as a role model to women in the region and the world”

Hadeel Sadeqa, Captain of Jeddah United said “we are honored to compete against teams that were also equally talented and skilled, it was a wonderful experience to play and qualify to the semi - finals however, and we will strive harder next year to emerge as winners”

There was audience shooting competition in between the final and semi final games, In addition to the main tournament a game was held for the media on the finals day i.e.26th of June. Female journalists from local publications stroked a fine match. The tournament concluded with distribution of medals and cheques to participating and winning teams. 

An interesting twist at this year’s match was the audience’s interaction, competitions for the spectators were also organized, lucky spectators from the audience were picked through a raffle draw to compete. The scoring of the points was based on the basic basketball rule if the ball went through the top of the hoop while shooting. Numerous prizes were handed out to the winners which were sponsored by Lipton Clear Green. This activity engaged the cheering audience who were glued to their seats to witness an interesting game.