In the blues

Swimming champ Aniket Shedge talks about his aspiration to represent India at the Olympics

At a time when most 17-year-olds are busy socialising on Facebook or at coffee shops; Aniket Shedge has dedicated himself to swimming. This First Year Bachelors of Management Studies student at SK College of Science and Commerce in Nerul,  has been swimming since he was 8 and has won a host of awards and trophies in the sport. The champion talks about his passion and aspiration:

The first stroke
Aniket started learning swimming from the MIG Cricket Club, Bandra and later took advanced lessons under the guidance of Ashish and Anand Sarang from Pune. Aniket further trained with national level swimming champ Amol Parle. This gave him the confidence to participate in various district and state level competitions. He is currently practising at the DY Patil Sports Academy.

Swim along
Aniket aims to represent India at the Olympics. In the next few years, Vineet sees himself representing the nation in at least one international game and making his fellow Indians  proud. He reckons that most memorable day in his life will be when he wins a national medal.
With such a busy schedule, balancing things becomes difficult, but Vineet smiles, “I follow a specific time table to balance my passion and my studies. Everyday I dedicate around an hour to studies as rest of the day is spent in college and swimming practice. Other than this, I spend one month in thorough studies before the commencement of exams.”
Being such a great swimmer at this age, Vineet's father, Sunil Shedge wants him to pursue a career in swimming. Although, other family members want him to take up some other profession as in India sports other than cricket are not given much importance. “My parents are not very happy about his career in swimming but they are still supportive. In fact, Vineet is able to follow his timetable because his grandparents are continuously pushing and reminding him of his daily activities. My wife and I both work; hence, we do not get sufficient time to concentrate on him. Therefore, his grandparents play a major role,” says Sunil.

Keeping abreast
His inspirations include Indian swimmer Virdhaval Khade, and the popular American swimmer Michael Phelps. He loves watching his heroes in action and like any sports enthusiast, he loves it even more when they win.
When asked whether he ever got the opportunity to meet his role models, he informs, “Once I had been to Virdhaval Khade's place at Kolhapur but unfortunately he was in Bangalore and I could only meet his mother and sister. Sometime back, I had seen him at a competition. At that time, I knew him, though I was not very passionate about the sport.” He adds, “So far, I haven't got the chance to meet Michael Phelps but I would definitely love to.”

Racing ahead
Aniket will be participating in the All India Amateur Aquatic Associations Competition, organised by Swimming Federation of India, to be held in later this year as well as in the All India Inter University Swimming Competition 2011-12 to be held at Kolkata.
Aniket believes that the sport requires a lot of patience and practice. He concludes, “Swimming is an individual game and the achievements are based on your own performance. Initially, it might be difficult but as time passes, the strokes will get easier.”

Laurels unlimited
Aniket has more than 2000 awards to his credit. Some of them include:
1st position
100 meters back stroke at DY Patil Sports Academy Dynamic Youth Games in 2011
1500 metres freestyle, state level interschool swimming competition 2009-10
4x100 meters freestyle relay, Maharashtra State Junior Aquatic Championship 2007
2nd position
6 kilometres freestyle all India Open Sea Swimming Competition 2009

--Indira Thakur