Bengaluru’s Dhinidhi Desinghu has been making waves in the swimming circuit. The 12-year-old rose to prominence last year when she set national records in the 100m freestyle, 200m freestyle and 200m individual medley at the Junior and Sub-Junior National Aquatic Championship.
This year, she has kept up her gold-winning performances, bagging three gold medals in the Karnataka Mini Olympics in May and following it up with three more golds at the Karnataka Junior and Sub-Junior Aquatic Championship, including a recording-breaking effort in 100m freestyle (59.64 seconds) that rewrote a 13-year-old record.
It all started for Dhinidhi as a leisure activity. “I started swimming just for fun, to enjoy the water during my summer vacation.” she says. Her talent and capabilities were identified immediately and it was decided that she would take it up seriously.
American great Katie Ledecky, a six-time Olympic individual gold medallist who won her third straight 800m gold at Tokyo 2020, is Dhinidhi’s role model. “I look up to her and want to be like her, even though she is predominantly a long-distance swimmer, and I swim medium-distance.”
One of the things Dhinidhi focuses on doing is to not overthink a race. “You have to be excited to swim and not be nervous about your performance. You have to try and enjoy it. Not thinking too much about a race can have a huge difference in your race timing.”
The youngster has the tough task of balancing her academics and swimming commitments. “Since school timings have changed after the easing of the pandemic restrictions, it is a bit more stressful and my academic workload has increased since the previous year. But I am able to cope,” says Dhinidhi, a Grade 7 student at Kendriya Vidyalaya DRDO in CV Raman Nagar.
Her father Desinghu stresses on the importance of being level-headed. “We keep talking to her and telling her that what she has achieved is not a small thing, there still is a long way to go,” he says.
Dhinidhi’s coach Madhu Kumar highlights her hardworking attitude. “She is a lot more serious about her goals than other athletes of her age,” he says. “She is always focussed and works hard in every single session, whether we are practicing in the pool or having a dry-land session.”
