The Hindu : Sport / Swimming : Swimming coach happy with preparations

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Aug 13, 2006

Sport

Sport - Swimming

Swimming coach happy with preparations

Principal Correspondent

BANGALORE: "The pool is well maintained and the facilities have been very good... and the 40-day camp has been productive," said the chief national swimming coach S. Pradeep Kumar, while watching 21 swimmers (11 boys and 10 girls) go through the grind in preparation for the SAF Games in Colombo next week.

The team will leave on Wednesday with coaches Satish Suri (Delhi), B. Dey Choudhary (Kolkata) and Padmanabha Rao (Karnataka). The swimming events at the SAF Games commence on Aug. 19 and end on Aug. 23.

"With 38 events at stake (two more than in the last edition), there is no reason why we should not better the 33 gold, 11 silver and two bronze haul we managed last time," Pradeep said.

The coach said that the team had gone through methodical and scientific training schedules. "Barring the butterfly events in the men's and the breaststroke in the women's sections, our swimmers should sweep the gold medals in the rest of the events," felt Pradeep.

He said host Sri Lanka will be the main threat to India and the team had been training in Australia and Singapore.

Besides the swimmers, the volleyball and badminton teams will also leave from Bangalore.

The team:

Men: Rehan Poncha, Mandar Divase, Virdhaval Khade, Sandeep Sejwal, J.P. Arjun, Rohit Havaldar, N.A. Sandeep, Amar Muralidhar, Arjun Muralidhar, Varun Divigikar, Aaron D'Souza.

Women: Pooja Alva, Kshipra Mahajan, V. Tejaswini, Lekha Kamath, Surabhi Tipre, Fariah Zaman, Arpana Magdum, Parita Parekh, Madhavi Giri, B. Neeraja.

Coaches: Satish Suri, B. Dey Choudhary and Padmanbha Rao.

Universal posts win

Universal defeated Navaratna 2-1 in a State `C' division football league match in Bangalore on Saturday. Prabhu and Suman scored for the victors in the 25th and 64th minutes, while Anurag scored Navaratna's solitary goal in the 37th minute.

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