Working-Class Heroes

Singh8217;s verdict is based on personal experience. Back in 1995, the first thing he did after leaving his 13-year-old son at 8216;Mahabali8217; Satpal pehalwan8217;s akhara in New Delhi8217;s Chhattrasaal Stadium was to buy a buffalo. 8216;8216;It cost me around Rs 30,000, which I borrowed from a relative, but look at the end result: my son became an Olympian after drinking its milk,8217;8217; he exults.

Now 22, Sushil Kumar, one of the six freestyle wrestlers to qualify for Athens, nods in acceptance of his father8217;s unique theory. 8216;8216;Whatever I am today is because of my father. I have been staying at akhara since the day he left me. And every day for the past nine years, come rain or fog, he has been bringing fresh milk for me from home at 5 every morning,8217;8217; says Sushil.

What Sushil perhaps didn8217;t know at that stage was that his father was only realising his unfulfilled dream through him.

8216;8216;I was also a wrestler but, due to financial limitations, was never able to reach where Sushil is today. I never wanted the same thing to happen to my son. It was my dream to see Sushil become a world-beater. I myself go to deliver milk to him every morning because I personally want to monitor his progress.

8216;8216;Even while other wrestlers would take a breather, Sushil continued with his practice as he knew that his father would arrive any time and wouldn8217;t tolerate his taking rest. He has worked very hard,8217;8217; says Singh.

Today, Sushil is a celebrity in his own way in his village Baprola, in Delhi8217;s Nangloi area. He8217;s won medals for India in various international competitions but the crowning glory came when he finished fourth at the World Freestyle Wrestling Championships in New York in 2003, a performance which also gave him that ticket to Athens.

8216;8216;My only regret so far is that I wasn8217;t included in the Indian team for the Manchester Commonwealth Games in 2002, despite finishing first in the trials. It was the most demoralising and humiliating episode of my life. However, I have forgotten it now and am looking forward to the Olympics.8217;8217;

And who knows, if Sushil can pull off a surprise by winning a medal in the coming weeks, his neighbours may shift their loyalties from the Nawab of Najafgarh to the Boss of Baprola.

8212; Ateet Sharma

THE MARKSMAN RAJYAVARDHAN RATHORE
Bullet training

ITALY means different things to different people. Anju George always makes it a point to include the Vatican on any visit there. But for Maj. Rajyavardhan Rathore, it8217;s the land of his beloved Perazzi.

India8217;s second medal contender in shooting, Rathore obsesses about his guns the way a musician frets about his instrument. 8216;8216;Sportsmen are like violins8217;8217;, he says, 8216;8216;highly strung, fine-tuned but a little trouble and they don8217;t perform well.8217;8217; So constant care of his guns is a must, which is where Italy comes in. In the land of the mafiosi, Rathore raves about the 8216;8216;prompt after-sales service8217;8217; from the manufacturer at short notice. 8216;8216;In Italy, any modification or fault repair, they are fixed in double quick time!8217;8217;

So how often does a gun misfire? 8216;8216;It can happen at any time,8217;8217; the armyman replies. 8216;8216;Just before the competition in Bangkok Asian Clay Target Shooting Championship last month, my stock 8212; the wooden part of the gun 8212; shattered to pieces during practice. A day before I was to leave from Italy for the Masters Cup competition in the Czech Republic, my trigger developed a fault. Luckily, I had a spare trigger.8217;8217;

Is it only the gun that takes him to Italy? 8220;Not just that. After many trials, I have now settled for a high-velocity cartridge made by Fiocchi, an Italian company, for the Olympics. I shot the last two competitions with the same ammunition and it felt good. The basic idea is that any shooter would want to be sure of the equipment he would be using in a competition,8217;8217; says Rathore.

Rathore has another reason for his training abroad. 8216;8216;I get good competition on a regular basis besides getting to shoot at different ranges so that by default I don8217;t become master at one range and fall into a false sense of comfort.8217;8217;

Rathore first thought of roping in a sports psychologist but it would have cost him a fortune. 8216;8216;Whenever I am with anyone who can share his experience with me, I love to listen and, more often than not, I always find something of value. I then try and incorporate those in my training and see if it works for me.8217;8217;

Among the first to arrive at the Games village, Rathore says he still have to work on certain things. 8216;8216;Everything is not perfect as of now but then nothing alarming about it. I am comfortable with my training schedule and what I need is a bit of polishing up to perfect myself before D-Day.8217;8217;

8212; R. Ramachandran

THE LONE RANGER TARUNDEEP RAI
Archer by accident

For aspiring sportsmen in Namchi, Sikkim, Bhaichung Bhutia is everybody8217;s role model. By the end of this month, he could be joined on that pedestal by his close friend and sometime neighbour Tarundeep Rai. India8217;s ace archer has already notched up one first 8212; Sikkim8217;s first Olympian 8212; and heads for Athens to complete a long journey that has had its share of struggle and success.

Rai 22 was just another village boy kicking a football but all the while dreaming of becoming as famous as Bhaichung. But he never took the game seriously, unlike Bhutia. With an unstable family income, Tarundeep was sent by his father at age 13 to a selection trial at the Army Boys8217; Hostel, in Shillong. That8217;s where Destiny played its hand. He turned up late for the trials and missed boxing and football. The only segment left was archery.

8216;8216;Archery! I never thought of the sport,8221; he says today. But his arrows found their mark and the lanky lad was selected. A career had begun.

Armed with a bamboo bow, which was later replaced by one made of wood, and following a strict regimen, Tarundeep had no choice but to like the sport. And, from all evidence, the sport liked him in return. His first success was the individual 8216;combined8217; gold he won in the 1998 Junior Nationals. It was a curious win because he8217;d flopped in the concurrent Sub-Junior Nationals.

But that opened the floodgates of success. A team silver at the 13th Asian Championship, in Myanmar last year followed by sixth place in the World Championship 8212; which earned them a Olympic place 8212; and a bronze at the Asian GP, Bangkok.

His focus is squarely on the Games, where he believes he can have a top-eight finish. 8216;8216;It8217;s tough at this level as every archer is as talented as the other,8221; he says.

It8217;s been a hard struggle for Tarundeep, now attached with the Army Sports Institute ASI, but he says, 8216;8216;No regrets today8217;8217;. And his struggle was made easier by those who helped him along the way. 8216;8216;To attain success one needs help from a lot of people 8212; coach, employers, sponsors, association, which finally makes up the success story.8217;8217; He mentions coach Pramod Chandulkar, of ABH, Shillong as his 8216;mentor.8217;

And, of course, Bhaichung. 8216;8216;When he heard I was going to the Olympics, he wished me luck.8217;8217; This was recognition from someone that he always dreamed to emulate. If Tarundeep had his share of dreams, Athens undoubtedly will given Bhutia ample reason to begin his dream 8212; the Olympics!

8212; Micky Aigner

THE COACH B I FERNANDEZ
Friendly foreign hand

8216;8216;This is the second time I have been invited to India and my goal is to gift an Olympic medal to this country. We Indians need this. I am not hoping for easy draws or luck. I am preparing them for wins. I want it.8217;8217;

It8217;s hard to tell from this that B I Fernandez isn8217;t true-blue Indian. The pedigreed Cuban is currently playing foreign coach to the Indian boxing contingent, just as he did in 2000 when disaster struck: two of his four boxers crashed out in the first round; one made it to the second; the fourth shone bright, making the quarterfinals before losing on a judges8217; count after tying on points.

How does he compare the two teams? 8216;8216;I think the 2000 team was better. I expected a lot more from them. I think where we went wrong then is not giving the boxers enough tournaments to fight in before the Games began,8217;8217; he says during a break in training.

This time around, of course, things have been better organised. With lots of competition even after the qualifiers; the Athens Pre-Olympic meet prime among them. Psychologists have been brought in to look into the mental side of things, food supplements have been imported legitimately to help the boxers8217; recovery time and strength.

But what has he brought with him from Cuba?

8216;8216;Experience,8217;8217; he says. 8216;8216;I have been in India before and have worked with both national coach G S Sandhu and Jitender. And better plans and strategies. Also, a better understanding of Indians, and Indian boxers.8217;8217;

The fact that he was brought into the picture so late in the day 8212; he reached India on June 28 8212; has played a role in his planning, making him 8216;8216;concentrate only on removing the weaknesses each of these boxers have. 8216;8216;There isn8217;t time for much else, but the boxers understand that and things have been moving well.8217;8217;

Watching him interact with the boxers at training, it8217;s evident that he realises the fallout of failure a second time. 8216;8216;You8217;re a man now! You8217;re not a boy anymore!8217;8217; he shouts at 19-year-old Vijender Singh, turning around to explain: 8216;8216;He thinks he is too young to be at the Olympics. We are trying to tell him he isn8217;t. I know Cuban boxers who have won Olympic golds at 17.8217;8217;

Ditto with other youngsters Akhil Kumar and Diwakar Prasad. 8216;8216;Akhil is my strongest bet,8217;8217; the bespectacled coach says. 8216;8216;He is strong. He is confident. He is very strong-willed. He is in a good moment.8217;8217;

Technicalities pour forth as he explains why Akhil doesn8217;t need any motivational talk while Vijender does. And why he thinks Diwakar is not yet ready for the Olympics, though at 22 8216;8216;he is progressing and is one for the future8217;8217;. Jitender, on the other hand, is quite inflexible because at 28, it8217;s difficult to 8216;8216;make him change8217;8217;.

Which brings us back to the 8216;8216;gift8217;8217; he wants to give the country of his work. 8216;8216;You have to realise the four boxers failed to qualify from the first Asian qualifier; two qualified from the second and two from the last. So there are lots of better boxers around. It won8217;t be easy. But we are all doing our best. One medal! Just think of what it will do to the future of boxing in India.8217;8217;

8212; Shamya Dasgupta

THE NATURAL AKRAM KHAN
Venue, village and room

Back in his village Gangoh, near Saharanpur, the Olympics doesn8217;t ring much of a bell. And judo even less. So when Akram Khan boards that flight, the first person from his family to ever hold a passport, he can be sure that there will be many puzzled faces at home, where he8217;s known merely as an international khiladi.

One suggests that a Olympic medal wouldn8217;t be a bad idea to change that but the unassuming Akram is under no illusions. He talks about 8216;chadar and leg space8217; and adds that his Asian bronze and Commonwealth silver aren8217;t credentials enough to make him hope for a medal at Athens. 8216;8216;It is very, very tough, especially in my 60 kg category. But I am not going there to complete the numbers, I will give my best,8217;8217; he assures.

Akram has learned to avoid the typical 8216;no-hopers8217; mindset that clouds the aspirations of those in fringe sports, and the accompanying distractions. 8216;8216;It8217;s either shopping, night spots or the tourist circuit which people with no medal hopes indulge in. But I have a strict schedule: Venue, village and room,8217;8217; he says.

Does this mean no gifts for his two brothers and two sisters and various friends when he returns home? Akram has worked that out: 8216;8216;Once I land in Delhi I go to either Janpath or a Customs shops for the gifts.8217;8217;

It8217;s an ingenuity that has propelled village boy to become, effectively, the country8217;s best judoka. He was first inspired by the films of Bruce Lee and other martial arts experts, then by the simple expedient of watching international stars in action. But his progress in a highly technical sport was hampered by the lack of quality coaching in India.

Which explains the 8216;8216;shock and awe8217;8217; he experienced during his month-long coaching stint in Uzbekistan and Japan. 8216;8216;I clearly fell short while trekking in the mountain ranges in Uzbekistan with their national team. I had never even dreamt that such an effort was needed to excel,8217;8217; he says. In Japan, he says, 8216;8216;they are miles ahead technically, we still have a long long way to go.8217;8217;

So after this stint is Akram at his peak physical condition? 8216;8216;All I can say is I am feeling good since I have really worked hard.8217;8217; But is this enough? Akram doesn8217;t say anything but shows his hands which tell a tale. Ten long fingers with each joint strangely protruding out bear testimony to the various fractures suffered. Do all judakos have such hands? Akram replies, without pause to blink: 8216;8216;No, only the good ones.8217;8217;

8212; Sandeep Dwivedi