“It means a lot...honestly ”
Shivani Kataria’s voice trails away as she tries to find words to express her feelings. She shrugs and laughs.
Without answering the question she conveys exactly what she feels.
The question in itself was rather simple. How do you feel now that you will be known as an Olympian
It’s been around two weeks since the 18-year-old was chosen by the Swimming Federation of India to represent the country at the Rio Olympics under the Universality criteria. A long way from when she began as an eight-year-old in a summer camp because her cousin used to go.
Being the lone Indian woman at the World Championship, she was the only candidate who fulfilled the required eligibility criteria for Rio.
“I had a meet in Hong Kong and I was at the airport with Sajan when he got a text saying that you both have been selected (for Rio). I was like I will take it as 90 percent. I wasn’t 100 percent (sure) but at least my name is there. Then the next day I got to know. I was so happy, I was on top of the world,” she says.
Being part of a Fina (world swimming federation) scholarship, Shivani had been training in Phuket (Thailand) for the last year and the youngster was well aware of what lay ahead and the sacrifices required to even have a sniff at getting to where she wanted to go.
“I was in the Fina targeting Rio camp in Thanyapura and we had a lot of swimmers from countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives. Everyone was focused on one thing over there and it was really good to have that kind of atmosphere and we really trained hard,” she revealed.
“We were swimming thrice a day when there was no meet and then doing dry land exercises. I had never swum thrice a day before. It was like wake up, train, sleep, eat, train, eat, dry land training and train again,” remarked the freestyler.
The Haryana swimmer will take part in the 200m freestyle event next month and heading into the biggest event of her career, Shivani has a realistic outlook. “To be realistic it’s very difficult to get into the top-16 so I don’t want to have an unrealistic aim. I want to do the B qualifying time which is two minutes three seconds.”
