Sporting

Vaishnavi Girish Ramdas, 16, will be taking a year off from academics, after her Class XII exams, so she can focus on pistol shooting. “Vaishnavi wants to be on ...

“I feel this is the right time for a young Indian to start a career in motorsport. “But athletics needs more funding from the State and corporate houses; I have even had to turn to crowd-funding to run my Usha School of Athletics.” It is indeed time that sports authorities and governments paid attention to all sport not just the top three. “Our men’s long jump is now world-class and the triple jump to looks promising,” she says. The foundation continues to work with partners such as the Odisha government, Athletics Federation of India, and the Indian Olympic Association.” I have seen many talented players, like Ayyappan Krishnan of Kerala, quitting the sport in order to pursue their academics, but now you have players who don’t even go to school and devote their time to training.” Nazar, a Kozhikode-based badminton coach, sees a change in the attitude of parents. She observes the scenario is a lot different from what it was during her days when she had to stop swimming because of the lack of finance. During the course of a few weeks, India also reached the final of the world youth volleyball championship in Thailand; Anju Bobby George won the bronze medal in the women’s long jump at the world athletics meet in Paris; East Bengal won the ASEAN club football championship in Jakarta, and there were also fine performances from the hockey team and a bunch of young chess players. In the summer of 2003, a little-known 16-year-old girl from Hyderabad caused a sensation at Wimbledon. Much of this is to do with our homegrown sporting stars, who have won it big in the last couple of decades. I have had to spend about ₹3 lakh on her recent trip to the UAE, where she played in two tournaments.” As parents, we felt one could always go back to college when you are older.” The teen is now looking at colleges in the U.S.