CHENNAI: Army Pal, the open-water swimmer from India, had to beat 87 participants in the 10 KM open-water race to earn the gold medal at Swim Miami 2024. A feat that has not been achieved by an Indian in a race of this stature in the US.
The 22-year-old is training at the World Aquatics open water development centre in Miami, Florida a part of the FINA Aquatics Scholarship Programme. “I am getting the opportunity to use the best facilities in the world and working along with some of the best swimmers in the world is a motivation in itself,” he told this daily from Miami. The unique feat was hailed by the Swimming Federation of India that felt this could lead to an Olympic quota in the next Olympics.
A son of a bank employee father and a housemaker mother from Hooghly in West Bengal started swimming because his mother wanted to put his energy to some good use. “I was an active kid and there was a swimming pool close to my house and my mother sent me there to swim. Once I started, I enjoyed swimming a lot.
Then in 2012, I started competing and I came last in my first-ever race. I couldn’t stop crying because I didn’t win a medal. My mother bought me a medal from the market and she has been supporting me since then. With that, I think, I got that aggression in me that I also have to win and be better. I started working harder with that motivation. I improved at every level from then on,” he added.
The journey continued at the state level and eventually at the national level as well, but it all changed in 2019 when Pal met coach Bhushan Kumar at the Glenmark Aquatic Foundation in Bengaluru. “He joined me in 2019. That boy is a hard-working fellow, but he used to struggle in the races. He has always been a distance swimmer even in the pool.
Slowly he started in the open water like 5k and 10k races,” the coach remembers fondly. If you ask Pal, he credits Kumar for changing his approach. “Bhushan sir suggested that I should try open-water swimming. He encouraged me to take up the open-water swimming and when I competed in the 7.5 km race for the first time, I finished fourth.
Then I tried five km and it suited me better. and I improved my time as well,” Pal mentioned. Slowly, the tides turned and Pal became a regular at the international open-water events. “We went to the World Championship in 2022 and he also went for the Asian Championship the same year. We have this open-water national championship in Karnataka.”