Damini Gowda has had a good year. She’s all of seventeen years old and early this year took four gold medals at a single meet – the South Asian Games in Guwahati, two of them in the individual disciplines of the butterfly, long regarded by many swimmers as perhaps the toughest swimming stroke. And she’s only getting faster.
She’s now training for the 2018 Commonwealth Games ahead of the next Olympics, and is well on track to becoming one of India’s future Olympic stars.
Gowda spoke about her passions, swimming, and some of her biggest experiences in her young life so far.
How did it all begin?
“My swimming start was conventional, but also not conventional. I remember the exact age I was too. 6 years, 11 months. My mom tried to put me into a lot of classes. She wanted me to try everything.
I went to dancing, painting, drawing classes, everything. I was going to become a tennis or a badminton player, but unfortunately, or fortunately, I became a swimmer. The thing is, it’s a really difficult sport too, and there are long training hours.
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But of all the things I did, I took to swimming the fastest. And in October 2006 I went for my first meet in Neyveli, Tamil Nadu, and I won medals over there, and that’s when my mom decided, ‘let her stick with this,’ and so I did. And now just like that it’s been 10 years that I’ve been swimming, and that’s been a long, happy journey, sometimes sad, rough, never easy, but a learning one.”
“You don’t perform well at every meet, but I’ve improved a lot since,” she says. That’s an understatement. This year, Gowda won four gold medals at the South Asian Games in Guwahati. And she’s only seventeen.
“Ahead of the Games, we were training in Delhi,” she says. “It was so cold – 4 degrees – and we trained early in the morning. But the facilities were amazing. Thankfully, we had a heated pool, and because it was the Commonwealth Games pool (the Games were in August 2014), it was upto global competitive standard, so were able to put in ideal practice.”
“The pool really was great, and the good facilities spurred me on. I knew I would do well at the Games,but I did not know I’ll break records there.”
Gowda broke three national records in addition to winning her four gold medals.
“That whole experience was really encouraging,” she says. “We were so surprised at the crowds there. So many people from Guwahati came to cheer us on, to encourage us, it spurred us on even more. It was really great standing on that stage, winning the medals, hearing our national anthem play.”
“But India can really do a lot more for its swimmers.”
She talks about facilities. “Delhi has the best pools in India, we need more pools like that. We need more centres like Dolphin [Training Academy in Bengaluru], we need to match up to international standards. There is so much swimming talent but we need to recognize it.”
“It is that which will help us produce more Olympians in the future,” the mature young teen says. “We can be on par with Australia, with America, but we also need those facilities.”
And she echoes the sentiments of Nisha Millet, saying “we need to see more Indians progress even further on this stage. We want to see Indians in the finals of the Olympics. I would just like to request the government to please do something for swimmers.”
Is she aiming for the finals of the Olympics? “Of course, every professional athlete dreams of being on that world stage, of going to the Olympic Games. But right now, I’m majorly focused on the 2018 Commonwealth Games and qualifying for that. I’ve also been looking to better my time – and improving it quickly,” she says.
How does one keep going, day after day, improving every little aspect of their game? “I keep telling myself, you know, motivating myself, that I can do that little bit better,” Gowda says.
Equality
“I kept hearing stuff like, ‘Oh the girls aren’t as fast as the boys,’ and things like that. My coach told me ‘yeah you can be faster than them, and he kept pushing me, and I absolutely did it. I was faster than them. And that motivated me to practice and work even more.”
She wishes more young women would swim. “Lots of girls I see, they get concerned about things they shouldn’t. They are worried they will get tanned, that they’ll get dark, but that should not be a concern.”
“I’ve been swimming ten years and I have developed a deep tan. God knows when it’ll go, “ she continues, “but that all shouldn’t matter.”
“My coach, Pradeep Sir, takes the credit,” she says. “He never let me think about all this stuff, and kept telling me I could do better. And I did.”
Sticking to the sport
“India is more academics-oriented, and that’s not a bad thing but a lot of promising athletes, swimmers too, are taken out of training at 15, 17, for board exams,” the 17-year-old says. “That mindset, that you can’t study and have a professional sporting career at the same time, that needs to change quickly.”
“In fact, what they don’t realize is swimming improves your concentration. You swim for two hours in the day, you’ll focus so much better too. I find swimming always increases my focus, my mental capacity too.”
Favourite athletes
She loves swimming, but Gowda mentioned earlier that tennis or badminton were her initial choices. That said, she has a host of idols – all of them Olympic legends. “My favourites are [Michael] Phelps, [Ryan] Lochte and Dara Torres,” she says. “I love Dara Torres!”
That group of swimmers has forty-five Olympic medals – of course, half of those are from Michael Phelps, who is the most decorated Olympic athlete of all time.
“I really do like tennis a lot,” the youngster says. And she has lofty idols there too. “Federer and Serena are my absolute favourites,” she tells me without skipping a beat. “Federer is my idol. I want to see him play before he retires. I’ll go to London, Paris, anywhere, but I must see him play before he retires. I look up to him, he’s an inspiration.”
“Serena is even better than Federer. Have you seen her power? I love her.”
All swimmers love Finding Nemo
“I love that movie, I think it is so cute, and my favourite dialogue is MINE MINE MINE,” she says, with all the glee and unabashed excitement of a young teenager, but one who has achieved laurels many adults have not. “All of us, professional swimmers that I’ve worked with at least, we all adore that movie.”
Damini Gowda is still very, very young and winning on the world stage as she gears up for the Commonwealth Games and the Olympics right after. With big dreams in her eyes and the world at her feet, Gowda is not just a talented swimmer, but a crusader in the fight for equality, for glory, for her sport and young women.
