Eighteen-year-old Vishwanath Suresh’s boxing career is closely followed in Perambur, as he hails from the locality. Having won gold in the 48-kg category at the recent Youth World Boxing Championship 2022 in Spain, his stock has gone up among friends and acquaintances from the locality. They seek him out for boxing lessons — that has been Vishwanath’s experience as he is holidaying in Chennai.
Vishwanath and his father, boxer-turned-tailor M Suresh Babu, can offer more then boxing lessons. They have life lessons to share on how they beat the odds.
Suresh Babu, a talented boxer, found his dreams of boxing glory dashed as he realised he had to shoulder the responsibilities of taking care of his siblings. “I am the eldest of five siblings. I have three sisters and a brother. And we struggled to find a square meal. Although I won many medals in boxing including the sub-junior national championship in 1995, I had little support and was not sure if I could make a full-time career out of the sport to meet the needs of my family,” says Suresh Babu.
With dad Suresh Babu
Love for boxing always haunted him. When his son grew up, Suresh wanted that wish to be fulfilled by Vishwanath. Since Class V, Suresh has been training Vishwanath in the best possible way despite the financial challenges to run his family of four.
Padding drills and workout using provisions available in public places dominated the initial years of training. Suresh would train him both in the morning and evening and sometimes in the afternoons as well, taking permission from the shop he worked for as a tailor.
“A good quality punching bag costs over ₹10,000 and we could not afford to use that on a regular basis as it would suffer the inevitable wear and tear, so I would pad on my father’s hands,” says Vishwanath. The Corporation grounds in the locality was were he was trained on fitness routines and strength training.
Suresh however knew his son would only shine in a specialised environment and made him appear for the trials at the Boys Sports Company of the Madras Engineering Group only to be rejected twice. “I was told that I did not have sufficient height,” says Vishwanath, dejected that he could not continue with boxing.
Suresh however never gave up and pushed Vishwanath for other selections, which meant borrowing money from people so that they could travel to other states. In 2018, he cleared the test conducted by Army Sports Institute in Pune and since then has been getting trained by some of the best boxers there.
Vishwanath has won gold medals at the junior and youth national championships. In 2019, he won a gold at the Asian Junior championships and a silver at the Asian Youth Championships 2021.
The gold-winning performance at the Youth World Boxing Championship in Spain has been hailed as one of the best from an Indian so far. “We had participants from 73 countries in the tournament,” he says.
Vishwanath is grateful to two of his coaches Vijay Kumar Sharma and A Kamesh for motivating and also helping him deal with the culture shock that comes from moving to a new city. “I am pursuing Class XII through Open Schooling and can speak Hindi and manage a smattering of English.”
