The water is your friend. You don’t have to fight with water; just share the same spirit as the water, and it will help you move.
Alexandr Popov
I had my first swimming lesson at the age of 4 and a half years, and since then I have been continuously learning and practicing. Since my childhood, I have enjoyed playing in water and swimming was always fun and soothing for me. Besides participating in school swimming galas and inter school competitions, I got involved in competitive swimming at the age of 9 when I started participating in local inter-club swimming competitions. In fact, participating in these competitions was always motivating and allowed me to improve my skills. It was always my motive in each competition to achieve my personal best timings.
In 2017, I first got selected to represent my home state of Madhya Pradesh at the Indian National Swimming Competitions, after winning 3 gold and 3 silver medals at the Madhya Pradesh State Level Meet and achieving qualification standard timings to participate in the National Meet. Since then, I have been a regular member of the Madhya Pradesh swim team as per my age group. I reached the finals in a few of my races. However, I was still striving to make a podium finish in 2017, 2018 and 2019. I represented GEMS Modern Academy at the CISCE Swimming Competition 2019 held at Bangalore in October 2019. In that competition, I made my first podium finish in any National Level Swimming Competition and won 2 gold medals. This result allowed me to represent the CISCE Board in the SGFI (School Games Federation of India) swimming competition held in Delhi in November 2019. Although I could not make a podium finish in that competition, I secured the 5th position and was proud of my achievement.
The pandemic and lockdown in 2020 was a setback as my practice and training was halted for nearly 4 months. Thankfully, after careful consideration and strict COVID protocols, the Dubai Government allowed active sports persons to practice in different sports and allowed the training facility to help certain sports persons. That was the time when I decided to put extra effort and prepare for upcoming events in swimming. As the inter-club swimming competitions started resuming in the Dubai area, I again started participating in those events to guage my preparedness for major events.
In September 2021, I was selected to represent the UAE School Federation in the ISF School Games 2021 held at Belgrade (Serbia). Although I didn’t get the podium finish, I got my personal best timing and was a finalist.
Recently, l was selected to participate in the Glenmark 47th Junior National Aquatic Championships-2021 held in Bangalore between 19th and 23rd October, 2021 in the Boys Age Group-II (14 years) category. I was selected to participate in 5 individual events (maximum events permitted to an athlete) because of securing “Qualifying Time”. This was exciting, thrilling and a big challenge for me as I was yearning to secure a medal on such a platform. On the first day of that meet, I had my first event of 200 meters freestyle. This event was my first breakthrough to have a podium finish in an open National event and that too with a gold medal. I was very excited and couldn’t explain my happiness. This achievement gave me extra motivation to be focused for my other events. Following that, I secured another gold medal in 100 meters freestyle and a bronze medal in 50 meters freestyle. In addition, I got my personal best timings in 100 meters butterfly (7th position) and 50 meters butterfly (9th position).
In fact, this competition has motivated me a lot to work hard to my fullest potential, and go the extra mile in my training so that I can excel in swimming.
I am thankful to all the people who helped me get where I am, especially my parents, coaches, school, teachers and class mates, who directly or indirectly supported me in every step of this journey.
– Pranjal Pandey, 9C