Karnataka Swimmer Manikanta L Wins 8 Golds at Tribal Games, Eyes Asian Games

The 21-year-old shone at the first Khelo India Tribal Games in Raipur, aiming for nine gold medals in four days. He ultimately secured eight golds and one silver. The real challenge for Manikanta was switching between the pool and the victory podium after each race, which involved constantly changing clothes and mentally preparing himself for the next event.

Manikanta, a breaststroke specialist, decided to challenge himself by competing in all four swimming styles, breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly, and freestyle, and aim for as many gold medals as he could for his state.

"It is never easy to shift between different strokes as it requires different strategy for every race. Also the time between the races was quite short. That was an added challenge here," Manikanta told SAI Media after his effort of winning six individual and two relay gold medals.

Manikanta took part in nearly every other race during the first three days of the Khelo India Tribal Games, which had only six races scheduled each day. He also attended the medal ceremonies at the international pool in Raipur between races.

All of this affected him, as he missed out on the 50m freestyle gold in the final race of Day 3, finishing second behind his state-mate Dhoonesh M.

"My abs had started to feel tight by the time I entered the water in that race and that affected my speed. But I am happy with my overall showing as this is the first time that I was participating in so many races and that too in different strokes," said Manikanta, who was hooked to swimming thanks to his paternal uncle Manjunath, who was also a national-level swimmer.

Manikanta secured four gold medals at the Khelo India University Games in Jaipur earlier this year, including two individual and two relay titles. He only swam the breaststroke segments in the relay races, while his gold medals in individual events were in the 200m and 100m breaststroke. Initially, Manikanta specialized in butterfly during the early part of his career, but a shoulder injury in 2019 led his coach Sinjo to advise him to focus more on breaststroke.

"I feel like I was destined to do breaststroke. Though I used to train mostly for Butterfly, my first National level medal back in 2016 came in a relay race in which I had swam the Breaststroke leg," said the swimmer who hails from Davangiri but now trains at the Basavanagudi Aquatic Centre in Bengaluru under coach Rajeev RS.

Manikanta firmly rejected the idea that his success in the Khelo India Tribal Games gave him the confidence to compete in more categories in the future. "Competing in multiple events is quite demanding on the body and that may affect my performance in my main event. I want to focus solely on breaststroke and try and make it to the Indian team for the Asian Games 2026 later this year," said the 21-year-old, who is considered the second best swimmer in 200m breaststroke category behind Dhanush S of Tamil Nadu.

Manikanta, who has won over 20 Khelo India medals, including two silvers and a bronze at the senior nationals, knows he must beat his personal best to qualify for the Asian Games with the required mark of 2:13.03 seconds. His current best is 2:20.55 seconds. The Indian record for this event is held by Sandeep Sejwal, who clocked 2:12.02 seconds at the 2009 Asian age-group championships.

"I have been training hard for the last two months with that goal in mind and that is why I could compete so well in these nine events here. I know getting into the Asian Games squad is quite tough but if I continue to work hard then I am confident that it can be possible," said Manikanta, who hopes to one day get a job in the Karnataka Police department on the basis of his swimming achievements.

- IANS