Twenty-one-year-old V. Dinesh, a visually impaired student studying B.Ed. (Tamil) in the Government College of Education, Vellore, has been selected for the All India Judo Tournament for the Blind, Deaf and Dumb being held in Vasco da Gama in Goa from March 19 to 22.
C.S. Sakthivel, judo coach and secretary of the Blind and Para Judo Association, Vellore, told The Hindu that it is for the first time that a visually impaired person is being sent from Vellore to the all-India tournament. VIT University is bearing the expenses. Dinesh is among the nine differently-abled persons from Vellore who left for Vasco da Gama on Monday . The other eight participants include four hearing and speech impaired boys and four hearing and speech impaired girls studying in the Holy Cross Deaf and Dumb School, Vellore.
Mr. Sakthivel said that many students from the Holy Cross School have participated and won medals in the all-India tournament in the past. A girl from the school got silver medal and another girl, bronze, in the tournament held in 2013, while two boys from the school won bronze in the same tournament. One boy from the school got bronze in the tournament held in 2014, he said.
An excited Dinesh said that he was happy going to an all-India tournament for the first time. He also plays blind cricket, standing long jump and discus throw in which he got bronze in a tournament while studying B.A. (Tamil) in Government Arts College, Nandanam, Chennai, in 2012-13. He said that he has been coached by Mr. Sakthivel for three months prior to the tournament and that he is confident of emerging successful. His father K. Venkatesan is a daily wage labourer while mother Lakshmi is an agricultural labourer. “I am going out of Tamil Nadu for the first time”, he said.
