Indian Swimming Thread ...

[Dhruv]

Heh I know.

I just thought it was OT cause because of all the reasons I mentioned the first time this was raised.

[Kumar]

Awesome, thanks Kumar for starting this thread

You are welcome gbelday.. Last Sunday, I had lot of free time on my hand and so was checking lot of posts..

Thanks Dhurv, Amr, Bhushan, mugu and others for their responses..

Rehan Poncha is/was also doing a good job but like I said the training methods suck because if the Aussies can knock off 5-10seconds off someones PB why can't we have coaches who can get trained by the Aussies to try and duplicate that in India on a wider scale.

That seems to be problem with all the sport disciplines in india!!! Why are we not sending coaches to be trained instead of sending athletes? Is this due to politics?

[gvhvhg]

Shikha Tandon was our only swimmer in Athens and has alot of upside....to already be competing at that level at here age (not sure what it is but shes pretty young) and she is only going to get better. From what I hear she will be world class in a few years.

[amr090]

i believe shes around 20. theres no reason why indians cannot succeed in swimming. but there is no infrastructure, or coaching in the sport in india. its almost non existent. honestly if we got people into the sport, i see no reason why indians couldnt be very good at it.

[gbelday]

Exactly. There is tremendous scope provided the right infra is set up. Indians are pretty competetive at the Asian level right now and are capable of winning some medals - though the Chinese are way ahead. With the right coaching, they can do a lot more at the World level. I remember Khazan singh tokas who won the silver at one of the Asian games - he wasn't on the scene for long before he won that medal - he went to Australia for a boot camp and the coaches there were really impressed with his skill level.

The current crop is pretty talented - they need the right support and they can do wonders (just like any sport in India I guess!)

[jayakris]

Does anybody know whether any Indians have tried for swimming scholarships in US universities, like in tennis? .. Some of the university swimming programs are excellent (I know, because University of Texas had the US Olympics coach as the swimming coach, and swimming is a relatively higher-profile college sport. UT has produced Olympics medalists as well).

Jay

[Dhruv]

Hmm most of the swimmers I knew of, Harinder Singh being the one who is probably most famous right now went to work for the Police or the Railways on their sports quota. Most of them atleast in Northern India would have difficulty in the TOEFL exam. I don't think anyone actually tried for university scholarships but if coaches mentioned that as a possibility I am sure people would be interested. When one thought of career options as a swimmer I don't think US Univ's was discussed at all. Also don't know what kind of times you would have to post to be eligible for the US Univ swim teams. I would imagine that it would be stupidly low. (i.e much lower than Indian national records)

[jayakris]

Well, it does not have to be a top-10 ranked swimming program. I would not be surprised if somebody would take a chance with a promising 17 year old from India.

Shall we try to do some ground work and try to collect some data on what are the times they look for in the US colleges, and what Indians can show. Well, TOEFL and all that would be OK (every tennis player who has wanted to come to the US has managed to get through!)

I cannot imagine that it would be easy to do in athletics, football, basketball etc - where Indian athletes are probabbly way to far behind the African Americans in the US. Swimming is different, and is a sport that has not penetrated the African American community as much. So the college coaches may be interested in those with good times from abroad who are reasonably competitive (somewhat like in tennis too)

.. Even a partial scholarship or something would make it feasible at least for some swimmers in India?

Jay

[amr090]

i'm sure some of the top youung swimmers in india have a legitimate shot at a lower ring division 1 school. i need to try to find times for indian swimmers...this is extremely difficult as little about them seems to be recorded!

[gbelday]

This is an interesting artcle - there is a line in here that says that most college coaches are inclined on giving scholarships to Americans rather than swimmers from overseas but it does talk about more foreign swimmers now competing here....

http://www.usaswimming.org/USASWeb/View ... ItemId=870

This following article has some top times for both men and women at Montclair State University - pretty good swim school. I am going to look up some times that Indians have posted and compare with these times (it has been difficult to find info on the times that Indians have posted)
http://www.montclair.edu/pages/athletic ... times.html

[gbelday]

Bula swims into history

India's swimming ace Bula Chowdhury became the first woman to conquer five continents by crossing from Three Anchor Bay to Robben Islands near Cape Town in South Africa on Friday.

http://us.rediff.com/sports/2005/apr/29bula.htm

[mugu]

gbelday, here is the list of Indian (senior) men's national records. Will post women's later. This might help you compare the timings. In case you do need some junior timings, I can post them, too, in due course. But the senior timings should give you a good picture about our swimming standards. Please do note that many records are standing since the 80s; should give a better indication about the present crop.

Swimming: Indian National records: Men (as on June 2004)
50m freestyle Sebastian Xavier 22.89 08-09-98
100m freestyle T. A. Sujith 53.15 21-09-03
200m freestyle S. H. Hakimuddin 1:56.11 23-08-99
400m freestyle J. Abhijit 4:09.74 23-12-95
800m freestyle Mander Anand Divase 8:45.88 20-09-03
1500m freestyle Mander Anand Divase 16:30.83 01-04-04
50m backstroke V. Arun 28.15 25-08-02
100m backstroke Ranajoy Punja 58.02 20-08-88
200m backstroke Wilson Cherian 2:08.74 01-07-86
50m breast-stroke Deepak Kumar 29.88 11-09-02
100m breast-stroke Deepak Kumar 1:06.21 14-09-02
200m breast-stroke Deepak Kumar 2:27.28 15-09-02
50m butterfly Rahul Batra 26.14 02-04-04
100m butterfly Khajan Singh 56.84 29-09-85
200m butterfly Khajan Singh 2:02.38 26-09-86
200m I. M. J. Abhijit 2:11.27 24-12-95
400m I. M. J. Abhijit 4:42.57 23-12-95
4x100m freestyle Indian team 3:38.73 23-08-02
4x200m freestyle Indian team 8:01.79 24-08-02
4x100m medley Indian team 4:03.85 01-04-04

[mugu]

This should be closest to current university standards in India:
All-India inter-University swimming championships, 2003:
Winners only:
Men: 50m free: K. Rajeev 25.49; 100m free: Rahul Batra 56.17; 200m free: Rahul Batra 2:05.20; 400m free: Rahul Batra 4:32.26; 1500m free: Ankur Kanojia 18:15.48; 100m back: V. Arun 1:04.36; 200m back: Parikshit Shetty 2:25.33; 100m breast: Punit Rana 1:09.31; 200m breast: Punit Rana 2:35.34; 100m fly: Rahul Batra 1:01.69; 200m fly: 2:19.06; 200m IM: Jaidev Shukla 2:18.54; 400m IM Jaidev Shukla 5:13.77.
Women:50m free: Madhura Patil 30.18; 100m free: V. Remya 1:06.53; 200m free: V. Remya 2:23.82; 400m free: V. Remya 5:01.31; 800m free: S. Veena 10:29.38; 100m back: V. Remya 1:18.20; 200m back: V. Remya 2:50.75; 100m breast: Madhura Patil 1:25.16; 200m breast: Archana Bhushan 2:57.60; 100m fly: Archana Bhushan 1:12.15;200m fly: Archana Bhushan 2:48.08; 200m IM: Meenakshi Tokas 2:41.57’ 400m IM V> Remya 5:43.90

[Dhruv]

The university swimming championships in India are probably not a good measure of the level of swimming at the age group. The reason being that a lot of the very promising swimmers skip university and join some Govt. body or another and compete at that level.

Just something that I know used to fairly common atleast 5-10 years ago.

[mugu]

Under-18 National records:
(as on June, 2003):
Boys:
50m free: Sandeep Kakkar 24.97 (1996)
100m free: Rahul Batra 55.16 (2001)
200m free: J. Abhijit 2:00.20 (1995)
400m free: Rehan Poncha 4:13.60 (2003)
800m free: Chetan Sharma 9:09.71 (2003)
1500m free: J. Abhijit 17:11.47 (1995)
50m back: V. Arun 28.99 (2002)
100m back: Sandeep Kakkar 1:01.82 (1996)
200m back: Sandeep Kakkar 2:15.37 (1996)
50m breast: B. M. Madhukumar 31.16 (2003)
100m breast: Vinay B. 1:08.67 (2000)
200m breast: Vinay B. 2:30.19 (2000)
50m fly: Rahul Batra 26.82 (2001)
100m fly: Elvis Ali Hazarika 59.58 (1999)
200m fly: Rehan Poncha 2:09.20 (2003)
200IM: Rehan Poncha 2:14.33 (2003)
400IM: Rehan Poncha 4:42.47 (2003)
Girls:
50m free: Shikha Tandon 28.03 (2002)
100m free: Shikha Tandon 1:00.21 (2002)
200m free: Nisha Millet 2:10.09 (1999)
400m free: Nisha Millet 4:37.11 (1999)
800m free: Meghna Narayan 9:42.00 (1995)
1500m free: Anita Sood 18:35.05 (1983)
50m back: Reshma Millet 32.75 (2001)
100m back: Nisha Millet 1:08.10 (1999)
200m back: Sangeeta Rani Puri 2:28.05 (1995)
50m breast: Saba Sait 36.19 (2002)
100m breast: Saba Sait 1:19.46 (2002)
200m breast: Sajini Shetty 2:50.52 (1996)
50m fly: Richa Mishra 31.27 (2001)
100m fly: Sangeeta Rani Puri 1:06.85 (1996)
200m fly: Meghna Narayan 2:25.08 (1995)
200IM: Shikha Tandon 2:29.10 (2001)
400IM: Nisha Millet 5:21.15 (1999)
(edited to include year of setting record in order to provide an idea of age)