National Aquatic
Championship 2012
“Did you know that
the government is sponsoring all kinds of sports for older people? Swimming ,
throws , running, jumps?”
That was my
daughter the journalist.
The government’s
definition of “old age” seemed a little different from mine. You qualified
to enter master’s events at the ripe old
age of 25!
I was intrigued
and decided to go to “The National
Aquatic Championship 2012” to be held in the beautiful lake city of Bhopal.
There was a lot of
planning involved, travel, hotel stay , closing the clinic, making caretaker
arrangements for my father etc.”
After everything
was arranged I got cold feet.
“Bhopal is very
far away. There are murders there. Who will hold my belongings when I swim?”
“What belongings?
“asked my husband.
“My cell phone,
money etc.”
The children
finally bullied my husband into coming with me.
“Tell me the exact
schedule of your events so I can plan and coordinate with my other travels. I
don’t want to stand around all day.”
The government did
not issue the sequence of events. (They even changed the sequence of the
printed list on the notice board.) They had a defunct web site where last year’s
results were posted and that was it. There were several instructions though—
“Swim suits should
not be transparent. Two piece swim suits
should have enough material to cover the number bib. Changing in public is not
allowed.!!”
Once at the hotel
my fears seem well founded. One of the people having lunch had a machine gun
toting bodyguard seated slightly to the side.
On the plus side
the hotel was situated on a hill overlooking the city. There were lakes all
around with plenty of water and best of
all there were no power cuts.
800 people turned
up for the meet from all over India. It looked like a nudist mela.
There was a bronze
medal winner from the 1961 diving competition in Italy. He was now in his 70’s
but he won the gold medal here as well.
There was an
amputee who came fourth, but was planning to swim all the way to srilanka after
6 months. There was a woman with a crutch who swam 400 meters. Their spirit and
enthusiasm was really to be admired.
My husband was
fascinated. “Look at that woman, she must be at least 80. She is so fat. I am
going to stay here in case she has a
heart attack.”
(She was just a
fat forty!)
There were no
doctors on duty so my husband doubled up. There was a woman who forgot her
inhaler, a man who cramped up severely and had to be hauled out of the pool.
One gentleman said
“you know I can still do underwater turns.” Most of us could not . We had to
touch the wall and turn. This meant we lost precious seconds. He soaked up
the admiration from the bystanders. He dived in for his race. As he reached the wall and
turned, he went into the next lane. He had a head on collision with the other swimmer.
He was disqualified. Winded, the other swimmer had to be hauled out of the
pool.
One of our
contingent (young woman 25-29 age group our best swimmer) got beaten by the
woman from Karnataka. She was very upset.
“How can I compete
against her? She’s not human! She looks like
bionic woman!”
She sort of did in
a synthetic snakeskin swim suit.
K was a great
believer in all kinds of supplement. She had a knapsack with “prerace gel, post
race recovery gel and protein shakes.” She spent a great deal of her time
squeezing brown semi solids and strange liquids into her mouth. They did not
seem to improve her performance overly. A muscly tough looking fit swimmer from
Maharashtra regularly beat her. By day three she had jitters and was giddy. We
had to withdraw from the relay because she was too giddy to swim. (Wonder what
is in these tubes?)
Medal distribution
was chaos compounded. The certificates weren’t ready and the officials were
harassed. My friend V and I caught an official.
“Sir,” we have to
fly back to Chennai. Can we have our medals?”
“Can you wait 15
minutes?”
A volunteer came
around with hot samosas for the officials. V looked at it longingly. The
official was embarrassed.
“Madam, would you like
my samosa?”
“Yes,” she said
and grabbed it.
“V, “ I protested,
“now he won’t help us!”
“I was hungry, I
just finished a race , he is just sitting there! I need the samosa more than he
does.”
No argument there!
(Photographs of
the event are on Facebook.
I got three medals,
1 gold 2 silver, V got one.)
Dr. Gita Mathai
The writer is a
paediatrician with a family practice at Vellore.
If you have any
questions on health issues please write to
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