Swimming activities face big loss this time
LUCKNOW: Ansh Arora, who fetched Uttar Pradesh their first-ever medal at the senior national swimming championship after 27 years in 2019, seems clueless and also hopeless about his future even in the post-lockdown situation as he hasn’t touched the pool water ever since pandemic corona virus hit the world.
Ansh, 20, who hails from Noida, had won a silver medal at Bhopal nationals last year in 50m breaststroke with a timing of 29.30 seconds, finds it hard to cope with the situation even the things are heading towards normalcy.
“I don’t think that things will become normal soon especially when the sport is very much a contact sport and so many precautions would be involved before you start swimming again.”
“I don’t see anything positive in the sport soon this year as we all are going through a difficult situation,” says Ansh, who has been training at the PadukoneDravid Centre for Sports Excellence at Bengaluru for the last seven years.
“I didn’t step out of my home in the lockdown. I have been doing cardio and other muscular exercise for almost two hours daily at home just to keep myself fit but I know that doing only this won’t make any big difference in my performance in the pool.”
ZERO BUSINESS
It’s going to be zero business for nine-time national gold medallist in 10m-springboard diving Rachna Singh, who runs ‘Bubbles Swimming Pool’ for kids and women’s in MahanaharNirala Nagar area of the state capital.
Rachna, who also had three gold medals at the Asia Pacific Masters International at Malaysia, last year, sees the future quite bleak and a zero business year for herself. “Swimming is also recreation for people and it is only possible when your estate of mind is fine, but in this situation it seems impossible and I don’t think that things would be normal as we had in the past soon.”
Though she has plan to introduce thermal screening of around 500 kids and women and proper sanitisation of pool after every session for during the 6-7 hours session at the pool every day, she has little hope of getting even a small positive response.
“Expecting anything before August-September is impossible and that too with a gradual start of activities but much would depend on people’s response as it’s a contact sport and what guidelines government decides for such sport.”
“A lot of investment too is required as I will need more
› I don’t think that things will become normal soon especially when the sport is very much a contact sport and so many precautions would be involved before you start swimming again ANSH ARORA, ace swimmer
hands for thermo screening of every individual before the start of every session and proper sanitisation of pool through chlorine to maintain the immunity of the pool members,” she said, adding, “I see a huge set back of anything not less than Rs 10 lakh this year to me.’
Her pool remains open from March 1 to October 31 almost for eight months and helps the young swimmers learn the basis of the sport before jumping to the big pools for the high level training.
Other than Bubbles Swimming Pool in the state capital, there are 50-60 more clubs and pools which are going through the same ‘traumatic situation’ nowadays and other than the owners of these centres, the worst affected are the ad hoc training and life savers working on a salary of Rs 4000 to Rs 7000 per month as they don’t have anything to do right now for their earnings.
“I make almost Rs 30-40 thousand in a season through my coaching and life-saving, and I invest this money on my studies at Lucknow University, but now I am confused as what to do in this situation as my parents are not in position to afford my college fee,” said Surinder, a life saver at a private pool in the state capital.
BAD SITUATION Situation is also worst for 40-odd swimmers, including 20 boys and 20 girls, at the government-run swimming hostel at the KD Singh ‘Babu’ Stadium here and 20-inmate hostel at the Safai Sports College as there are no activities and the inmates have lost confidence of doing anything good in the post lockdown scenario.
There are almost 30-40 pools, including 20 Olympic-sized across the state, and these centres help young boys and girls get trained for the national championships in all categories. “It’s going to be a zero achievement year as even if the nationals take place in July-August, the swimmers won’t be able to challenge the rivals as they are out of touch of sport and staying at home with no facility every for their physical activities at home,” says a government coach on condition of anonymity.
UP Swimming Association’s secretary, Ravin Kapoor too sounds disappointed with the present situation even the lockdown is almost over. “I don’t expect anything before September and it looks almost impossible to conduct regular activities even then,” he said on Wednesday.
“Water is the most conducive to carry the virus and getting infected with corona virus would be easy, if we start the training of the swimmers before taking all precautions. UPSA has no plans to conduct the state championship unless the Swimming Federation of India announces the conduct of the nationals,” he said, adding, “It would make no sense of conducting the state championship when there are no nationals.”