The Hindu : Sport / Swimming : Khade fit for pre-Olympic meets

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 09, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Sport

Sport - Swimming

Khade fit for pre-Olympic meets

BANGALORE: Virdhwal Khade, the country’s lone qualifier in swimming for the Beijing Olympics is fully fit for the pre-Olympic meets, which he plans to compete in Australia next month.

Khade attended a three-week physical conditioning camp at King City Sports Centre in Durban last month under the auspices of the Mittal Sports Foundation along with few other wards of the Mittal Group. His coach, Nihar Ameen who spoke the The Hindu, said “it was an interesting and a very useful camp conducted under the supervision of noted South African physio, Heath Mathews. It helped us to judge the full physical potential of Khade and evaluate his strengths and weaknesses in terms of training .He underwent a battery of tests, which are not available at home and I am happy to say that he is totally fit”.

Khade, who had resumed serious training after missing out half the season last year due to his academic examination and later a brief illness, will compete in few Pre-Olympic meets in Australia. “The reason, we chose Australia was the fact that besides regular meets, there are a lot of low-level weekend competitions, which would help him in his preparations”, said Nihar.

Karnataka squad

Karnataka will field a 104-member contingent for the South Zone age group swimming and waterpolo championships which gets underway at the PM Swim Centre pool here on Wednesday. Andhra Pradesh, too is fielding a big team with 105 members, besides Andhra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and debutant Puducherry will figure in the competition.

The State squad has a sprinkling of internationals including Pooja R. Alva, Madhrui Giri and Aaron D’Souza.

Most of the events are in the meet are expected to be direct finals, barring few which would be conducted as time trials.

While the outstation teams have started arriving for the championship, the staff at the venue is busy giving finishing touches to preparations and electronic touch pads are also being installed for the meet.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport