GANDHINAGAR: Madhya Pradesh's swimmer Advait Page was supposed to join classes at the University of Florida, where he has been pursuing a degree course in Sports Management soon after the Commonwealth Games ended in August. He took admission at the University in 2019 for the four-year course so that he could train with world class swimmers.
Since the National Games were to be held in the country after a period of seven years, he changed his plans. He did not want to miss out on the opportunity of winning medals for his state.
It was not a formality back in the US. He had to take permission from the swimming coach as well as the lecturers of the University. Besides, he has to attend the online classes and submit assignments from time to time. The US time zone made it even more difficult as there were days when Advait had to stay awake throughout the night after gruelling training sessions.
The hard work and additional effort put in by the swimmer, however, bore fruits as he won his third gold in 800m freestyle on Thursday at the Sardar Patel Aquatics Complex in Rajkot.
He had earlier won a gold each in 1500m freestyle and 400m individual medley apart from bagging silver in the 200m backstroke. The MP swimmer will compete in 400m freestyle and 200m individual medley on Friday.
"The additional stay of one-and-a-half-month in the country means he has been doing both training and attending classes. There are days when he rushes back from training and directly goes into his room to attend classes. He also submits assignments for which he stays up the whole night to ensure he does not miss the deadline," Advait's father Ashutosh Page told this daily.
Earlier, Advait’s superior endurance and finishing speed earned him the 800m freestyle gold in a stunning manner in one of the closest races in the event. Trailing Aryan Nehra (Gujarat) and Sajan Prakash for all but the final few meters, he shot past them to be the first to touch the wall.
Later, Sajan bossed the 50m butterfly to complete a sweep of the three events in the stroke. If he was feeling tired after being pushed hard in the 16-lap event, he did not show it as he coasted to victory, making it clear that he brooks no challenge in butterfly events.
With victories in the 100m backstroke finals, Olympians Maana Patel and Srihari Nataraj picked up their second individual gold medal each. A start to finish effort by Bhavya Sachdeva (Delhi) handed Karnataka teenager Hashika Ramachandra her first defeat in five events here.
Meanwhile at the Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar, World Championship bronze medallist Jamuna Boro of Assam registered a 5-0 win over lesser-known Nirmal of Nagaland to open her campaign in style in the women’s 57kg weight division. Her statemate and former World Youth champion Ankushita Boro also advanced to the next round after recording an RSC (referee stops contest) win over Telangana’s Niharika Gonella in the women’s 66kg preliminary contest.
Gold for archer Atanu
Veteran archer Atanu Das won the men’s individual recurve gold beating Gurcharan Besra of Services. The West Bengal archer had a forgettable outing at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo last year. The failure also meant he couldn't make it to the Indian squad since then and was dropped from the Target Olympic Podium Scheme.
The gold here, however, has given him a lot of confidence. “The upcoming year is very important for us. This gold is reassuring that my preparations are on the right track. You can say I am an upgraded version of myself. Thoda chillana kam kar diya hoon (Have stopped shouting now). But when I do something big, you will see me shouting in excitement,” he said after finishing on top of the podium.