Река Бхагиарати където се проведе всеиндийският плувен маратон
This time, the only aim was to complete the race and all my three girl swimmers did it in good fashion. Although, this was not their first experience to participate in 19 Kms. River Bhagirathi Race held in Murshidabad, West Bengal, but three of them were in different shape. Both, Miss Tejas Sakaran (15) and Miss Varada Dharmadhikari (16) suffered from harpies and missed major portion of their training. Again they are appearing their Board’s exam which decides their career. Therefore, school/college were reluctant to grant them concession. Whereas, Miss Sayali Pendharkar (20), a second year engineering student, had severe temperature and hence was housed for couple of days. But nothing stopped their mental makeup and urge for participation. After all they are swimmer and tougher than any other sport persons.
This yearly 19 Kms. All India Marathon River Race held in River Bhagirathi in conjunction with World’s Longest Swim Race of 81 Kms. 25 swimmers all over India and Bangladesh took part in the race. This event is so popular in the village that we literally had to hustle to get into our boats. And when race finished, we could not even approach our swimmers in time. This is every year’s scenario. It feels good that marathon swimming has so much of admiration.
In her 3rd consecutive year, Varada completed the race in 2 hrs 39 min to secure 7th position. Last year she was 6th with 2 hrs 32 min. Sayali is most experienced swimmer has already swum 81 Kms race twice and 19 Kms five times earlier. She finished well in 10th position with 2 hrs. 45 min; just ahead of her younger teammate Tejas, who completed the stretch in 2 hrs 49 min.
Not only illness or studies, but the tougher problem for them is to manage school, college and classes. Both girls travel 40 Kms a day for this purpose whereas Tejas, stays 160 Kms from Pune and needs to travel this distance every week end just to train with my team. But the family backing, mainly from their mothers and their urge for marathon swimming make this path easier.
Tejas Sankaran now training for 15 K Clean Half Extreme Marathon Swim to be held in Hong Kong.
