Mission "Veeraiah to Rio " - Can we do it?

A few days ago, there was a big buzz in the media over Girisha Hosanagara Nagarajegowda when he won a silver in Men’s High Jump event at the London Paralympics 2012. Would Girisha have earned the same recognition had he ended up in fourth? Would that have meant that he had put in any less effort? You can be pretty sure that he would have remained an unknown face, had be been a non-medalist.

That is the true state of sports in India.

Girisha was funded by Samarthanam, an NGO for the disabled. Thanks to the thoughtfulness of this organisation, India was able to give shape to the dreams of a poor, disabled man. While the story of Girisha is now well known all over India, there are many more such athletes (not only disabled) all over India, who are not able to gain access to good training facilities. Nutrition and mentoring are a far cry.

It’s our firm belief that when we cannot encourage talent in sport, we should refrain from criticising performances. When we expect performance, we need to back our sportsmen all the way. The greatness of a patron is not only in his generosity. It’s his faith in the effort and his respect for the hard-work of a “nobody” who aims to be a ‘somebody’ someday. It’s this quality in a patron that truly needs to be appreciated. People view success in terms of medals, true patrons fund the effort and not the medal, medals are just the icing on the cake.

One such athlete who hails from a poor financial background is Veeraiah Hiremath. It was a pleasant weekday morning when we met Veeraiah while he was training at the runners track at SAI Bangalore. We got to know about Veeraiah’s case from a local daily that had carried his article. We at SportsKeeda, as always, were determined to know more and see how we all could make a positive impact on Indian sports. Our mission was simple. As we consider sports-fans to be all powerful, all we needed to do, was to fan the ‘fan-power’.

Veeraiah hails from a small village called Timmapura in Raichur District, Karnataka. During our chat, we got to know that due to the lack of awareness about opportunities in sport, his family never encouraged him to take marathon-running seriously. Instead he was chided for wasting his time and was entrusted with domestic chores. On being asked as to why he did not apply for a job under sports-quota, Veeraiah told us that he became aware of the “sports-quota” only after crossing the eligibility age. No one in his village ever knew that sports could fetch a job!

He came to Bangalore in 2008 and trained by himself till he was discovered by coach J.S Bhatia, who brought him to the S.A.I. in July 2010. Veeraiah showed a drastic improvement in his timing (from 3:15:00 to 2:41:10) when he stood fourth (among Indian elite athletes) at the Sabarmati International Marathon in December 2010. His latest timing was 2:48:00 in July 2012 (he was carrying an injury at the time).

The road to Rio is very clear. He needs to train under a professional coach, Mr. Bernard, in Kenya (Veeraiah feels he needs the guidance of coaches who have been there and done that) at least for a year. He needs to get his timing to 2:30:00 to qualify for the Stan-Chartered International Marathon in Jan 2014. A first place here can see him going into the Commonwealth Games and subsequently the Asian Games. “Give me one year of training and I will give you the best results” Veeraiah pleads with us.

Here are a few ways where you can help Veeraiah who needs at least Rs. 10 lakhs for his training over the next four years.

A. In case you want to make a monetary contribution, you can fill a simple form (link below) so that the details will be made available to those who are genuinely interested in contributing to this noble cause.

https://docs.google.com/a/sportskeeda.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dFYxc1U1aHdOWk5KaVBtZzZrdU5BTnc6MQ

B. You can visit SAI Bangalore on a weekday morning (6 am -1 0 am), see him train and give him some words of encouragement.

It would be amazing to see Veeraiah make it to Rio and have the satisfaction of having helped a fellow countryman realise the dreams of millions.