BENGALURU: After a disappointing outing at World Championships in July, the spotlight was on Virdhawal Khade during the nationals in Bhopal a fortnight ago.
Khade didn’t disappoint. He bettered his meet records, clocking 22.44s and 24.19s in 50m freestyle and 50m butterfly. His timing in the former was just .01s shy of his personal best (clocked at Asian Games), but it was enough to achieve the B qualifying mark for Tokyo Olympics.
However, that’s not what Khade is after. The swimmer is targeting the elusive A cut, giving his everything during training. A reason for his poor Worlds run was an ACL tear in his left knee a week before the event, which hindered him.
Now, Khade is undergoing rehab at Abhinav Bindra Targeting Performance (ABTP) centre. He is aiming to be at 100 per cent by Asian Age Group Championship (AAGC), which begins on Tuesday. The continental event will be at Dolphin Aquatics, his home pool.
“I have been able to recover quite quickly with the help at ABTP. But I’m not at 100 per cent. Because of this injury, I changed my technique a bit. Earlier, my left leg used to be ahead at the start. Now, my right leg is ahead. That’s made me a bit faster. Also, we have added extra load on the knee during training, and that has helped me improve my dive and strokes.”
Khade, though, has been absent in 100m freestyle. He last participated in that discipline back in March, in the Singapore National Age Group meet. The 28-year-old did qualify for the event at Worlds (also Asian Games), but his entry was mistakenly not sent by Swimming Federation of India. At the nationals, the Maharashtrian swam in the 4x100m freestyle relay, but opted out of the individual sprint. However, Khade is training for the discipline and will take part in it at AAGC.
“It was disappointing to not see my name for 100m freestyle at Worlds. Since I’ve been in rehab, I didn’t want to push myself at the nationals. But in relay, my timing was better than my gold-medal effort in the individual event. I’ve been training for 100m freestyle. Hopefully, I will be able to surprise myself at AAGC.”
While the target is to get the A mark soon, Khade’s coach Nihar Ameen doesn’t want to put pressure on him by setting a time-frame. AAGC will be one of the many opportunities for the swimmer to get that job done. “He has made good progress of late. We can expect good results from him at AAGC, considering this is a pool where he trains every day,” said Ameen. “But this will be just one of many events to get the A cut. We have time till next June, and he will keep pushing until he gets it.”