Seventeen-year-old Muthumula Greeshma Reddy returned to her hometown recently from the World Throwball Championship held at Kathmandu, Nepal, last week. It was a golden double for the Indian men’s and women’s teams.
For the first year B.Sc honours student of St. Francis College, Begumpet, this was her second international gold. The first came under her captaincy in the Asian Throwball Championship at Kuala Lumpur. Beginning her journey as a 15-year-old in the School Games Federation of India championships, her climb was rather quick.
From the inter-district level, she advanced to State, zonal and national competitions in a short span of time, captaining sides at the junior and senior national championships along the way. Facilitating her rise in the game from an early stage has been her father Vinod Reddy and Telangana Throwball Association Secretary Jagan Mohan Goud.
Greeshma was fortunate to come under the tutelage of coach Siddu. Equally important was the mentoring from Syed Farooq Kamal, head of Department of Physical Education at St. Francis besides complete backing from the principal, Sr. Christine Fernandez.
“The college supports me fully and in return only expects me to represent it in inter-college and university tournaments,” said Greeshma, who mostly defends the centre and front zones on the court; which is quite similar in dimensions to a volleyball turf. “It also enables teams in any sports, not just mine, to practice for six hours a day,” said the tenacious teenager.