'Quality training vital in career pursuit'

MUMBAI: Ananya Joshi, 13, took to swimming three years ago. But, that has hardly proved a deterrent for the youngster, considering that most of the girls she competes against began training when they were as young as four-year-old.
The standard VIII student of Holy Cross Convent High School in Thane impressed at the recently concluded state swimming championship where she won four silver and one bronze medals.And, a couple of days from now, she will be competing at the Junior National Aquatic Championships in Bangalore in the 100m butterfly, 50m breaststroke and the 200m breaststroke. She is serious about pursuing swimming as a career and thanks to the backing of her parents, Ananya hopes to become a top-class competitor in the near future.
"I practice from 6 am to 8 am before heading off to school. I return after 1 o' clock in the afternoon and try to finish all my home work by four so that I can get back to swimming practice from six to 10 in the evening. It is hard work, but I am prepared to do it to fulfil my dreams," says the soft-spoken Ananya.
But according to her mother, more than the hours spent practising, Ananya needs better training facilities so that she can improve steadily.
That's where an organisation like Sports For All (SFA) is trying to make a difference. They are in talks with Michael Phelps Swimming School to start their training programme at the DY Patil University at Nerul. "Once they can tie up, we hope to get better expertise," insisted Ananya's mother. Not only swimming, SFA has also initiated talks with top sportspersons who are running quality academies in disciplines like tennis, table tennis, badminton and judo so that talented youngsters don't miss out on a quality training.
It is towards this end that they will be organising the second edition of their interschool competition in December where they hope about 35,000 students will compete across 26 disciplines over a period of 20 days. In the inaugural edition in 2015, 6,230 students from 302 schools across Mumbai participated.
"The idea behind this initiative is to identify as many talented kids as we can. Every event is recorded, athletes profiled, and the videos are made available to competitors. That also helps our coaches to understand the kind of talent we have and the seriously promising individuals are recommended for further training," explained Rishikesh Joshi, the man behind this initiative.
Budding judoka Saakshi Sarwal along with her classmates from St Teresa's Convent High School, Santacruz had represented the school last year and had won a bronze in the U-17 category. She believes such initiatives will not only encourage more participation, but will also create a state of the art competition at the school level.