Chasing Olympic dreams in a forest pond
nNEW DELHI: An irrigation pond inside a rainforest is not where you would expect an elite swimmer to be, but these are unusual times. With swimming pools closed across the country since the lockdown in March (and no sign yet of them reopening), Olympic hopeful and men’s national 100-metre breaststroke champion Likith SP can be spotted working on his skills in a large reservoir of water surrounded by thick greenery.
If the Covid-19 pandemic has put normal life on hold, the 21-year-old swimmer from Bengaluru has found an alternative training environment that’s an unusual and joyous adventure in itself; it involves hiking through forests, skateboarding down winding hill roads, learning to forage for edible plants in the jungle, learning to sow paddy, surfing trips to Mangalore, and yes, swimming. Back in February, Likith and 15 other elite swimmers had visited an organic farm owned by their coach Parth Varanashi for what was meant to be a two-week camp, a mere change of scenery from their usual pool work in Bengaluru. Then came the pandemic and the lockdown, and the swimmers and their coach decided simply to hole up at the 50-acre organic farm and continue their training with whatever resources they had available to them.
“The athletes are making best use of the natural environment. They are having organic food and staying close to nature. Their recovery is much faster,” said Varanashi, a former swimmer who trained as a coach in Australia after having gone there to read biotechnology. Likith began working with Varanashi in January 2019, and hit his personal best of 1:02.02 minutes in April that year. That still falls short of Tokyo Olympics “B” mark of 1:01.73, but Likith is hopeful that he will clip two whole seconds to hit 59.93 seconds, the Olympic “A” mark, which will take him straight to Tokyo. Swimmers achieving the ‘B’ mark can go to Tokyo only if the quota of participants isn’t full.
“I’m going all out to break the 60 seconds barrier…it might take eight to ten months of vigorous training,’’ said Likith.
At the farm, it is not possible to put in the 8-10 hours of pool time a day (divided into two sessions) that Likith usually follows.
“Here, we get up at 6am and start training at 7. The two-and-ahalf hour swim session comprises different drills to improve technique,” Likith said. The irrigation pond where he swims is a short hike through the forest that surrounds the farm. “In the evening, the focus is on muscle groups that aren’t used in swimming.”
On some days, training different muscle groups can mean working on the farm. On a recent day, Likith and his fellow swimmers sowed paddy from 9 in the morning to five in the evening, with an hour’s break in the middle.
Born in Bengaluru, Likith took to the pool at five. “Swimming was the best option my parents thought for me to stay healthy,” he said. It was the beginning of a journey that fetched a senior national relay silver in 2011. Next year, he won bronze in 50m and 100m breaststroke at the World School Games in Israel. In 2014, Likith bagged his first individual senior national bronze in 200m breaststroke. Two years later, at the initiative of JSW, the sports arm of the JSW Group, Likith went to train with Graham Hill who was South Africa’s head coach for eight years and has been part of five Olympics. Among Hill’s trainees is 2012 Olympic 200m butterfly gold medallist Chad le Clos.
The time with Hill in 2016-17 was an eye-opener, said Likith. “But when I was told that I had followed the wrong training system in my formative years and it would take a lot of time to change my technique, it was a big disappointment.” Likith soldiered on and went to Austria for another training programme. Injury spoilt his chances of making the cut for the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games and Likith said he was contemplating giving it all up.
“I was rich in experience and bad in performance,” he said. His sponsors too had backed out.
It was only when he met Varanashi, who was running an academy near his farm as well as coaching at a swimming club in Bengaluru, that Likith decided to stick to his sport.
“He is a very technical coach, and it’s very different training under him,” Likith said. “I made good improvement and clocked the best time of my life.”
Though Likith has embraced his farm-and-forest life, getting back to a proper swimming pool is a priority. “I wish the government would open some pools, at least for the elite swimmers, so our programme can continue,” he said. Shuttered pools have also severely impacted the livelihoods of coaches and staff so Likith recently joined a fund-raising group to help them. Last week, he sold his gear from the 2019 World Championship.