With Tokyo Olympics only some months away, the swimming hopefuls, their coaches and different skilled swimmers discover themselves in sizzling water once more because the Karnataka authorities on April 2 issued an order to close down swimming swimming pools throughout the state until April 20 within the wake of rising COVID-19 circumstances.
With the brand new order to maintain the swimming pools closed, over 1000 aggressive swimmers within the state will likely be put out of form. In protest in opposition to the transfer, greater than 600 individuals together with coaches, members from affiliated golf equipment, dad and mom and swimmers gathered at Shri Kanteerava Stadium on Monday to attraction to the Karnataka authorities in Bengaluru to re-open swimming pools.
The IndianSpecific.com spoke to teach Nihar Ameen, who’s coaching India’s Olympic hopefuls. He emphasised that swimming is likely one of the most secure sports activities to pursue through the pandemic because the virus doesn’t unfold via water, notably chlorinated water.
The first Dronacharya awardee in swimming feels that the game is being unfairly targetted, particularly when most contact-sports like cricket and soccer are allowed to be performed. While athletes in most disciplines have began collaborating in worldwide/nationwide competitions or are getting ready for comebacks, swimming as a sport has felt the blow tougher than others, he mentioned.
Karnataka swimming fraternity getting collectively for peaceable protest in opposition to the choice to shut swimming pools & gyms within the state. Everyone from youngsters to coaches are being affected. The complete swimming fraternity is struggling. Please open the swimming pools.@BSYBJP @BBMPCOMM @CMofKarnataka pic.twitter.com/7GxRCnUI9t
— Sharath M Gayakwad (@sharath_torpedo) April 5, 2021
No Indian has ever made the ‘A’ qualification commonplace, which affords a confirmed berth for the Olympics. Six Indians have, nonetheless, achieved the second-level Olympic qualifying mark or the B commonplace, which solely retains them within the reckoning in case the overall quota of swimmers isn’t reached by the tip of the qualification interval.
The swimmers to have attained the B qualification mark for Tokyo Olympics are Srihari Natraj (100m backstroke – 54.69), Kushagra Rawat (400m freestyle 3:52.75, 800m freestyle, 8:07.99, 1500m freestyle, 15:25.22), Sajan Prakash (200m butterfly, 1:58.45), Advait Page (800m freestyle, 8:00.76), Aryan Makhija (800m freestyle, 8:07.80), Virdhawal Khade (50m freestyle, 22.44s). Their aim of reaching the A mark retains getting distant as swimming services keep inaccessible.
The Indian swimming contingent on the World Championships in Gwangju. (L-R) Sajan Prakash, Advait Page, Aryan Nehra, Likhith SP, Parth Varanashi (coach), Nihar Ameen (head coach), Kushagra Rawat, Virdhawal Khade and Srihari Nataraj
It’s been one yr of the pandemic. How did the lockdown halt the progress of the game in India?
The lockdown was brutal and we’ve got come a full circle now that they’ve shut the swimming pools once more. If you don’t chlorinate the pool and go away it identical to that, you might be certain to get water illnesses like cholera, dengue, malaria and many others. So it was an enormous problem – we needed to preserve our swimming pools which value us some huge cash, we needed to pay our workers which value us some huge cash. And there was no cash coming in.
And fairly frankly, this occurs once more and it’s actually the tip of the street for us. We haven’t made up for the losses of 2020. We simply bought began and had been going to pay our workers as nicely. The swimmers had been simply coming again and now this has occurred once more.
I simply really feel that swimming is being unfairly targetted. The authorities should perceive that chlorinated swimming pools won’t breed coronavirus. If you’re permitting different sports activities to be open, swimming must also be open. Athletes who’re coaching ought to be allowed to coach. The basic public is a unique challenge. I’m not speaking about that or pushing for the general public to be in water. But athletes who’re in coaching, who’re extremely disciplined identical to some other sportsperson, shouldn’t be victimised. Swimming is the most secure of all sports activities, that’s all I’m saying.
Athletes might be able to resort to different types of coaching/train when gyms/coaching centres are shut. But swimming is probably one sport that may’t have another. How did you retain the morale of your gamers up? Do you’ve gotten a sports activities psychologist to assist the gamers mentally?
Yes, we do. We have had a number of classes with them through the lack of coaching to maintain them motivated. We held common group classes, motivational classes with psychologists and health classes (outdoors water), which might solely assist to that extent.
It all began fading away after a number of months. Numerous athletes had began dropping hope. Like considered one of my Olympic qualifiers, Virdhawal Khade, who was the primary swimmer within the nation, misplaced form, misplaced hope and he stop the game. Of all the brand new swimmers, he was the closest to A qualification for Tokyo (Olympics) and he stop as a result of he couldn’t comeback. He couldn’t make it. So that’s most likely one of many biggest losses we’ve got ever had. He is likely one of the greatest casualities of this pandemic.
Almost 3 months for the reason that swimmers in India entered the pool . If different aggressive athletes can comply with social distancing whereas coaching , aggressive swimmers can do the identical as nicely .I hope different Olympic swimming prospects don’t contemplate retiring due to this .
— Virdhawal Khade OLY (@virdhawalkhade) June 14, 2020
Do you assume there may be sufficient emphasis on swimming in India, contemplating it has a lot of medals on supply on the Olympics? What must be carried out to make Indian swimming aggressive on the worldwide degree?
That’s an enormous query. Numerous work is being carried out by the Swimming Federation now to enhance the state of affairs – by calling down international specialists, getting state-of-the-art gear to India. Numerous work is being carried out however it is going to take us time to catch up. But we want extra swimmers, we want extra swimming pools and we positively don’t want these sorts of disruptions.
It’s heartbreaking to see each contact sport being performed which are actually breeding the coronavirus. There are dozens of tennis gamers, dozens of soccer gamers, cricketers and coaches who’ve examined optimistic as a result of these are all contact sports activities. Swimming is the most secure sport due to the chlorine. You can’t catch the virus in water which is chlorinated water and that has been substantiated and proved by the WHO, in writing. And nonetheless, I don’t know who’s targetting our sport and why they’re doing it!
Coming out of the lockdown in his 1st race of the season Indian swimmer Srihari Natarj clocks 0:55.37 in 100 backstroke 10/a centesimal sec quicker than the Olympic B qualification time. He had beforehand clocked a quicker B qualification time of 0:54.69 in 2019 @DGSAI @KirenRijiju pic.twitter.com/PclYy0E2sF
— @swimmingfederationofindia (@swimmingfedera1) March 5, 2021
What is the morale of the Olympic hopefuls proper now?
Right now, most of them are in a foreign country at this level besides Srihari (Nataraj), who I’m presupposed to be travelling with in a number of days time for the Uzbekistan match, which is an Olympic qualifying match. We are hopeful that he will likely be doing nicely.
