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A 16-year-old swimmer from Kolhapur, an archer from Imphal and tennis’s old hands - The Sunday Express profiles the notable faces among the Indian squad for the Olympics starting on August 8

Virdhawal Khade
Sport: Swimming
Events: 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle, 200m freestyle

There’s this adorable, peculiar way in which a Kolhapuri gives directions to lost souls. “Go straight. You’ll see a massive Palash tree with bright red blossoms... don’t take a right there. Further down, you’ll see a small Hanuman temple... don’t turn there. Fifty metres on and to your left there is that paan stall with a Madhuri poster...” The voice pitches high, and then curls into another soft-spoken admonition, “Don’t go left from there.”

Kolhapuris, it would seem, are no good at guiding hapless travellers with their non-landmarks. But in their own rambling way, they pave the signposts of the journey as you invariably reach your destination.

“Go to Beijing. You’ll see the most stunning azure blue swimming pool, and then the world’s most talked-about streamlined structure going by the name of Michael Phelps... don’t stop there.” Headed to China for his maiden Olympics, Kolhapur boy Virdhawal Khade would be at home with that twisted set of instructions.

At 16, setting off ripples in Indian pools, Khade will travel to Beijing with an eye firmly on London four years from now. Flapping his giant arms, kicking forward his 6 ft 2.8 inch frame on the world’s biggest swimming stage, this teenaged trainee of Bangalore coach Nihar Ameen is expected to take the sport a full body-length further in the next two editions of the Games. A Beijing rehearsal to a London mega-show is on the cards for swimming’s boy-man wonder.

Competing at the FINA World Youth Swimming Championships in Mexico last week, Khade knocked off precious milli-seconds from his previous timings to clock 22.6 seconds (50m freestyle), 50.49 (100 free) and 1 min 50.35 (200 free) for new national records in the three events he’ll race at Beijing. The freestyle sprints are the most fiercely contested events, and Khade will need to drop to at least 22.2 in his favourite 50 free to make the semi-final. Timings of 49.5 (100 free) and 1.49.5 (200) are over-ambitious targets set by coach Ameen for his ward, who, however, believes 22.2 is realistic.

But what is turning heads is not this Vernier-scaled number crunching. Riding Khade’s Mexican wave this past week were Ricardo de Moura, the Brazilian member of FINA’s Technical Committee, and Camillo Cametti, veteran Italian aquatics writer with Il Mondo Del Nuoto. While the senior scribe joked about a heated final in the men’s 50m freestyle after “the surprising Virdhawal Khade (IND, born 1991, 22.69) posted the second-fastest qualifying time, and followed it with a 50.49 in 100”, the Brazilian talks in earnest about the swiftly changing profile of swimming. “The World Swimming Junior Championship opened a new window of opportunity. For the first time ever, an Indian swimmer was a finalist in a FINA world event — V Khade 5th on 50 free and 7th on 100 free. This proves that swimming has grown more than any sport in the last Olympic cycle,” he wrote.

Inheriting his hoopster father Vikram’s genes for a tall body-type, Virdhawal is blessed with the physique and high levels of motivation required for a pursuit of a medal for India at a top international meet. How he deals with the loneliness of swimming training routines in the next four years will be crucial as he seeks perfection of technique in his starts and turns, and builds on his strength.

These are heady times for swimming—the Americans are brimming with the ‘Phelps Phactor’ (NBC’s coverage of the American swim-idol chasing the Mark Spitz record has forced China to alter the schedule for the benefit of the US audience). There was never a better time to make waves as an Indian swimmer. From Kolhapur.
- Shivani Naik

Anju Bobby George
Sport: Athletics
Event: Women’s long jump
At 5 ft 0 inches, Anju Bobby George is a tall woman by Indian standards. But it’s on the field that the long-jumper’s stature dwarfs most of her compatriots — male or female. Not since PT Usha did India have an athlete who could promise so much and deliver too, until Anju.

She jumped into national consciousness when she won a bronze medal against world-class competition at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, and then clinched gold at the Busan Asian Games the same year.

In 2003, she truly arrived at the world stage. Jumping 6.70m, a little short of her personal best at the time, she got a bronze at the World Championships in Paris — the first Indian athlete ever to win a medal in the Worlds. With only a year to go for the Athens Games, this fuelled the expectations of local fans, who believed she would get India’s first Olympic medal in athletics in Athens 2004.

When the big day arrived, an unfazed Anju gave it all in her first jump to leap 6.83m—a new national record—and suddenly a gold looked on the cards. But she slid down the leaderboard as her competitors kept raising the bar. In the end, her career-best proved not nearly good enough, and she had to settle for the sixth place.

But it seems she touched her peak in Athens. But for the 2005 World Athletics final, where she jumped 6.75m for a silver, she hasn’t been able to touch even the 6.70m mark since. Injuries and age took their toll and she couldn’t even win a medal at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.

On the face of it, Anju seems to be shaping well ahead of the Beijing Games. She has a hat-trick of golds at the Asian Grands Prix — Bangkok, Korat and Hanoi — in the past month. But in reality, her performance hasn’t been as impressive as it sounds. Statistics hide more than they reveal. But sometimes they are just too obvious to be outrightly rubbished. Her best jump last season was 6.65m. This year it’s just 6.55m — about a foot short of her best. As Anju slides down the slope, the chasm between her and the world’s best is widening, to the extent that her season’s best doesn’t even figure in the top 80 jumps of the year: 62 long jumpers have fared better than her this year. The writing is on the wall. One hopes she gives it her all and walks off holding her head high in Beijing.
-Daksh Panwar

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