Tender age, big achievements of twin gymnasts
PUNE: Hard work and passion are two ingredients important for success. The twin Hattekar sisters, Riddhi and Siddhi, have both in plenty as they showed on their way to clinching four medals gymnastics at the Khelo India Youth Games.
The 15-year-old twins, who hail from Aurangabad, first showed their class in the all round event on Day 1 with Siddhi winning silver and Riddhi clinching the gold medal. On Day 2, the duo clinched two more medals with Siddhi winning gold in uneven bars, while Riddhi won bronze in the beam event.
“When we are competing against each other, our focus is not to beat each other but to improve our performance,” explained Riddhi.
The girls studying in the 9th standard in Sharada Mandir School train under Maharashtra women artistic gymnastics team coach Ramkrishna Lokhande. “Girls are hard working since the beginning. In last two years we have worked hard on improving their weak points,” said Lokhande, who had visited Japan recently to learn new tricks in gymnastics.
“We Indians lack knowledge about new techniques so when I visited Japan, I learnt new techniques there and now I am implementing it here at the Sports Authority of India training centre in Aurangabad,” added Lokhande.
The twins had also taken part in the first edition of the Khelo India Youth Games, with Riddhi finishing fourth in the all round event and Siddhi bagging silver in uneven bars. The siblings started training in gymnastics at the age of four under coach Markrand Joshi. “Our brother was the main inspiration. We used to watch him before we fell in love with the game,” added Siddhi.
“I am happy with our performance we both did well in this tournament. From this tournament I learnt that we should improve our concentration and focus. Even if we make mistakes, we should not stop and take lessons from it to move ahead,” said Riddhi.