Young kayaker has big dreams to chase

Personality

The young and promising Twisha will cherish this one gold throughout her career, not just because of the hard work she had put into it, but for the fact that it came on her first race in a strong field featuring the country’s top women competitors.

The Karnataka teen showed maturity beyond her age to stun favourites and seasoned campaigners to land the women’s Kayak-1 (K-1) 1000-metre title in Bangalore before adding the women’s K-1 5000M title. Twisha extended her glorious run in the age-group events also, claiming the Junior girls’ (under-18) K-1 500M crown and the Sub-junior girls K-1 500M races.

She came up with a terrific display of grit and determination to prevail over her much older rivals in the Senior 1000M race. “I am lost for words,” Twisha said after her victory last week at the Ulsoor Lake. Struggling to get her breath back after an exciting race where Twisha scraped past her opponent Nanao Devi, a bronze medal winner at the Asian championship this year in Tehran, by the thinnest of margins, the 14-year-old said: “It was my dream to win gold here in Bangalore. I was keen to beat all the experienced kayakers in the race and I am happy that I eventually did.”

With 200 metres to the finish, Twisha found herself trailing by five metres or so but she showed her fighting qualities when it mattered most. “In my mind it was like, I am going to do it. This is my lake and I will be the winner,” revealed Twisha, a ninth standard student of Kendriya Vidyalaya (MEG & Centre) who trains under co

ach M S Mahesh at the Trishna Club located at the same venue.

To reach this level, the Indore-born Twisha had to travel quite a way. “I tried several sports like horse riding, basketball and badminton. But my father introduced me to water sports. First I took up rowing but later shifted to kayaking,” said Twisha.

Twisha’s father Colonel K V Prasad of the MEG and Centre and mother Jayasri, a housewife, seeing her potential introduced her to kayaking just three years ago. “I was surprised to see her winning medals in Senior-level so soon. She used to run with me for kilometres regularly when she was just eight years old.

At that time I realised that she has a lot of stamina. Then when I went to Leh in Jammu and Kashmir she used to train with me at an altitude of 11000-feet without any problem, which convinced me to enroll her to water sports. Now she is reaping the dividends,” said a pleased Prasad, who is a native of Prakasham district in Andhra Pradesh.

In 2009, at the age of 12, Twisha won the Sub-junior (under-16) K-1 200M and K-1 500M gold medal at the Nationals in Nainital. Next year in Bhopal, she retained the titles and went one step further by clinching the K-1 500M crown in the Junior category (under-18).

Prakash, who shifted to Bangalore four years ago, said Twisha’s first big target is to win a medal at the 2014 Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing (China). “Twisha has to complete 15 years for competing in international meets in kayaking. So she will be looking to qualify for the Youth Games from the 2013 World Junior championships in Welland (Canada) from where the top-32 will get entries to the mega event,” pointed out Prasad.