As the 39th Junior National Aquatics Championships drew to a close at the Velachery pool in Chennai, a petite 13-year-old girl from Tamil Nadu emerged the cynosure of all eyes. With a glittering trophy in hand, amidst the bursting of crackers and flashing of cameras, she stood smiling from ear to ear.
The girl was A.V. Jayaveena, fresh from her resounding success at the Championships where she was adjudged the best swimmer in her age group, an award she shared with another swimmer from Maharashtra. She had made the three breast stroke events over the distances of 50m, 100m and 200m hers — all in record times. The icing on the cake came in the form of a gold medal in 100m freestyle which she confesses she had least expected to win.
“It feels great. Having missed out on the title at last year’s nationals by a slender margin, I am happy to have won it,” says a beaming Jayaveena, a day after the victory, with the feeling yet to sink in.
For her, the journey started when she was three. The baby steps she took towards becoming arguably the best breast stroke swimmer in her age group, were in the vicinity of a baby pool in Rangarajapuram.
“She was raising a hue and cry wanting to get into the water while her brother was swimming,” recollects her father, noted actor Thalaivasal Vijay. “Just to scare her off, I asked one of the trainers to let her into the water for a moment. But to everyone’s surprise, she felt at ease. That was when I thought she could be a swimmer.”
Jayaveena’s initial successes came when she won a handful of district medals. “She was a raw talent when she first arrived,” says B. Girish, the head coach at Turtles Swim Club. “The potential was there but she had to be moulded. Dedicated swimmer that she was, she worked hard on her technique, endurance and fitness. The results are there for everybody to see,” he notes.
At the 2011 National Games at Ranchi, she was the youngest swimmer in the country, at age 12, to win a medal with a performance that caught many an eye. In the latter half of the same year, she truly became a sensation when she won the 50m breaststroke at the senior nationals, also at Ranchi, in record-breaking time.
“Bettering Saba Sait’s time gave me great confidence,” she says. “It was a long-standing record and it made me really proud.” A typical day for Jayaveena involves six hours of rigorous training — three hours in the morning and three hours in the evening. “My desire is to constantly improve. I always concentrate on bettering my previous performances,” she says, the quality of which was fully evident at the recently concluded junior nationals.
Next up is the senior nationals in October at Pune, which, she says, she is keenly looking forward to. But her eyes are clearly set on international waters. “My aim is to qualify for the Asian age group next year,” she says. If the ripples created by Jayaveena are anything to go by, there is promise of bigger things to come from this Class VIII student of Chettinad Vidyashram.
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-metroplus/what-a-splash/article3655521.ece
The girl was A.V. Jayaveena, fresh from her resounding success at the Championships where she was adjudged the best swimmer in her age group, an award she shared with another swimmer from Maharashtra. She had made the three breast stroke events over the distances of 50m, 100m and 200m hers — all in record times. The icing on the cake came in the form of a gold medal in 100m freestyle which she confesses she had least expected to win.
“It feels great. Having missed out on the title at last year’s nationals by a slender margin, I am happy to have won it,” says a beaming Jayaveena, a day after the victory, with the feeling yet to sink in.
For her, the journey started when she was three. The baby steps she took towards becoming arguably the best breast stroke swimmer in her age group, were in the vicinity of a baby pool in Rangarajapuram.
“She was raising a hue and cry wanting to get into the water while her brother was swimming,” recollects her father, noted actor Thalaivasal Vijay. “Just to scare her off, I asked one of the trainers to let her into the water for a moment. But to everyone’s surprise, she felt at ease. That was when I thought she could be a swimmer.”
Jayaveena’s initial successes came when she won a handful of district medals. “She was a raw talent when she first arrived,” says B. Girish, the head coach at Turtles Swim Club. “The potential was there but she had to be moulded. Dedicated swimmer that she was, she worked hard on her technique, endurance and fitness. The results are there for everybody to see,” he notes.
At the 2011 National Games at Ranchi, she was the youngest swimmer in the country, at age 12, to win a medal with a performance that caught many an eye. In the latter half of the same year, she truly became a sensation when she won the 50m breaststroke at the senior nationals, also at Ranchi, in record-breaking time.
“Bettering Saba Sait’s time gave me great confidence,” she says. “It was a long-standing record and it made me really proud.” A typical day for Jayaveena involves six hours of rigorous training — three hours in the morning and three hours in the evening. “My desire is to constantly improve. I always concentrate on bettering my previous performances,” she says, the quality of which was fully evident at the recently concluded junior nationals.
Next up is the senior nationals in October at Pune, which, she says, she is keenly looking forward to. But her eyes are clearly set on international waters. “My aim is to qualify for the Asian age group next year,” she says. If the ripples created by Jayaveena are anything to go by, there is promise of bigger things to come from this Class VIII student of Chettinad Vidyashram.
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-metroplus/what-a-splash/article3655521.ece
No comments:
Post a Comment