The Hindu : Sport / Swimming : Virdhawal Khade to train in South Africa

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Thursday, Nov 29, 2007
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Virdhawal Khade to train in South Africa

Special Correspondent

— Photo: K. Murali Kumar

BRIGHT HOPES: Swimmers Virdhawal Khade (left) and Sandeep Sejwal have the talent to make a splash in major events.

BANGALORE: Virdhawal Khade, the lone Indian swimmer to qualify so far to the Beijing Olympics, will leave for South Africa on Thursday for a stint of physical conditioning and training in Durban under South African expert, Pete Mathews. Khade will train from December 1 to 21.

In chat with The Hindu, Khade said that he was pleased to be back in action after prolonged break owing to a gastroenteritis problem and his High School board examination.

“I missed most of the major meets of the season including the Asian Age Group, Asian Indoor Games and the senior National championship. But I am training hard now and will to my best,” said Khade.

Khade as an Olympic qualifier is sponsored by Mittal Sports Foundation. He has made the Olympic cut in the 200m freestyle and hopes to qualify either in the 50m or 100m freestyle event.

The strapping lad from Kolaphur, considered the ‘world’s fastest’ in his age group (under-17), aims to win a medal in the 2012 Olympics. He has the time and talent on his side.

Khade will be accompanied by his coach, Nihar Ameen on the trip to Durban. “I hope the trip will be very beneficial to Khade and I understand that Sania Mirza and Joshna Chinnappa had trained under South African expert for some time,” said Ameen.

Sejwal confident

Ameen said that he would have loved to take along another one of his prodigies, Sandeep Sejwal but he does not come under Mittal scheme. Sejwal, who took two silvers in the Asian Indoor Games at Macau recently, also was confident of cracking the Olympic qualifying marks in the 100 and 200m breaststroke events. He was within whisker of doing so at the senior Nationals.

“Asian Indoor Games was great meet and I happy to do so well despite not training much in short course and it was also my first major short course outing,” said Sejwal.

Australian tour

He plans to qualify for the Olympics by April 2008 and Ameen plans to take his wards to Australia for the Australian junior National meet there and few other events, giving Sejwal enough chances to make the Olympic grade.

“Sejwal too deserves to be there at Beijing and as a coach, it would give me an immense pleasure to have two of my wards on board there,” said Ameen.

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