Kutraleeswaran - India’s forgotten swimming sensation

India’s forgotten swimming sensation Kutraleeswaran

1994 was the year when Kutral Ramesh, popularly known as Kutraleeswaran, became a household name in India (at least in Tamil Nadu where he was born). He was a marathon swimmer and swam across the English channel. He also broke the record of Mihir Sen by crossing six channels in a single calendar year.

All of this, when he was just 13 years old. In most other countries, such a promising young talent would have been nurtured in to a future Olympic Champion, but you can’t expect that in India. Ironically, when he went to Italy he was offered all the best training facilities in the world, provided he agreed to represent them in the Olympics, an offer which he declined graciously.

Guinness record

Before swimming across the English Channel in the year 1994, he swam across the Palk Strait. And then he swam across Rottnest Channel in Australia, Straits of Messina at Italy, and also Zannone Circeo at Italy. The final one was the Ten Degree Channel which he swam across on the 30th of December, thus making sure he completed all six by the end of the calendar year.

This feat made sure his name was etched in the Guinness book of world records.

It was a phenomenal achievement for a 13-year-old boy. News soon started spreading about this young exciting talent. And surprisingly for many, he wasn’t a cricketer or a hockey player, but a swimmer.

25 swimmers from across the world were selected for the World Series in swimming. Among them, only one represented Asia and it was none other than Kutraleeswaran. He represented India in six global competitions totally and went on to win an event held at Switzerland.

This was recognized by the Indian government which bestowed him upon with the Arjuna Award in 1996, thus making him the youngest person to win the award at that time.

Lack of sponsors

Things were looking bright for him until then, and his career graph was supposed to soar further considering his age, but it wasn’t to be. The lack of sponsors hit him hard.

His dad had to spend a lot for his training and his travel. His family approached their State government to aid him (which they did), but how many times could they keep going back?

Travelling to Europe was always going to be expensive and his dad couldn’t afford it. One of the incidents that really broke his heart occurred when he was about to participate in a competition in Germany. The tickets were ready and just when they were all set to leave, they got a call from their sponsors informing them that they were pulling out.

Even though his dad was willing to help him further, he saw no point in continuing and rightly so. In a country which doesn’t respect talented sportsmen, it is very hard to survive and make a career out of it without any backing.

Kutraleeswaran was quick to realize that and gave up on his dream of winning an Olympic medal for his country.

Switch to education

Kutral knew he needed to have a strong educational background at this stage, and pursued engineering in Chennai. He still had minor hopes of juggling between competitive swimming and his studies, but unfortunately the rigours of engineering took their toll and even the smallest of his hopes vanished with them.

After completing engineering, he then moved to the United States and joined the University of Texas at Dallas for his Masters degree, subsequently joining Intel.

Hopes for a better future

More than 15 years have passed by since then, and he says there are improvements in India’s sporting environment, but there’s still a lot of work to be done. For a start, he wants the prize money to be increased and wants recognition and support for young aspiring athletes who top the charts at district levels.

He points out that tennis, carrom, chess and squash are getting good coverage these days in India and also the fact that the last Olympics was India’s best ever.

Follow your passion by working hard and with a lot of commitment – that is what he advises the younger generation. He wants to start an academy in the future to train people, and we hope a talent such as his proves to be useful in some form or the other in India’s efforts to emerge as a major sporting power.