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India Gazette
22-05-2025
- Sport
- India Gazette
Khelo India Beach Games 2025: Maharashtra's Diksha Yadav clinches double gold in open sea swimming
Diu (Daman and Diu) [India], May 22 (ANI): Maharashtra's Diksha Yadav continued her exploits at the inaugural Khelo India Beach Games, sweeping both gold medals on offer in the Open Sea Swimming event. The 19-year-old from Maharashtra, picked up the yellow metal in both 10km and the 5km events at the Ghoghla Beach, Diu on Thursday morning. In the men's 5km open swim for men, Karnataka's Drupad Ramakrishna won gold, according to the SAI Media Release. Diksha, who has fallen in love with long-distance swimming, started playing when she was in class 10, training at the Balewadi Stadium in Pune. This is just her second year in open water swimming, having been inspired by the accomplished American swimmer Katie Ledecky. 'The double gold at KIBG 2025 is an achievement for all the practice I have undergone before coming here,' said Diksha after her 5km victory on Thursday morning. She recorded a time of 1 hour, 10 minutes and 12 seconds en route to her gold, as quoted from the SAI Media Release. This was also her first time challenging the Arabian Sea. 'The water was calm, and there wasn't much difficulty. This Khelo India platform will help a lot going forward. Now I am focusing on getting the international selection this year and winning a medal for India at the World Championship open swimming category,' Diksha Yadav added. In the men's 5km open swim, Karnataka's Drupad Ramakrishna recorded a time of 1 hour, six minutes, and 46 seconds to win the gold. However, the class 10 student is looking for more in his career, and the medal at the Khelo India Beach Games is just a pit-stop. 'I have more competitions to go and more years to perform. I am hungry for more medals,' said the 15-year-old Dhrupad. 'At the Basavanagudi aquatic centre in Bangalore, we train continuously for 1-2 hours to adjust to sea swimming. Therefore, there is not much difference between there and here. Just that there are more waves here,' he added. Results: 5km open Men: 1. Drupad Ramakrishna (Karnataka) 1:06:46; 2. Gundu Vishnu Vardhan (Telangana) 1:06:58; 3. Hemanth A (Tamil Nadu) 1:07:41 Women: 1. Diksha Yadav (Maharashtra) 1:10:12; 2. Purva Gawade (Maharashtra) 1:10:25; 3. Aasra R Sudhir (Karnataka) 1:10:29. (ANI)
India Gazette
19-05-2025
- Sport
- India Gazette
Khelo India Beach Games 2025: Big wins for Goa, Gujarat, Kerala; non-coastal states stay brave in soccer
Diu (Daman and Diu) [India], May 19 (ANI): The inaugural Khelo India Beach Games 2025 (KIBG) at the Ghoghla beach in Diu got rolling on Monday with beach soccer taking centre stage on day one of the event, according to SAI Media Release. Amid the breaking waves of a dazzling Arabian Sea in the background, Goa and Rajasthan featured in the boys' opening match of the day. There couldn't have been more contrasting teams, and the match, 13-9 in favour of the Goans, validated that point. Goa is a full of beaches while Rajasthan has none. Which means, the Goans were kind of at home and the Rajasthanis were at sea. Which leads to the question: are the non-coastal regions going to find it tough at KIBG 2025? Not necessarily since last year in the Diu Beach Games it was actually Madhya Pradesh, a non-coastal state, that ran away with most medals but of course, there will be challenges. Rajasthan team manager Hari Om listed the set of challenges his team faced in the lead-up to the KIBG. 'It's not that easy for us, a non-coastal state. I mean we practice on an artificial field of play back in Rajasthan. What we do is get tons of sands on trucks from southern Rajasthan but do what we will, this sand is so different from the one which we use for our practice,' he said, as quoted from SAI Media Release. 'We started very well against Goa but then we got tired and they pounced on us. Going forward we need to focus on this aspect, stamina. We also need to focus on proper hydration. One of the players today fell sick. So, these are the challenges a non-coastal team like us faces,' he added. Uttar Pradesh girls coach Mukesh Kumar Sabberwal echoed the sentiments even though they got their campaign off to a good start. 'We practice on grass, not even sands. Today we won against the girls' team of Rajasthan which is also a non-coastal state but once we go up against coastal teams, that will be a totally different ball game,' he said. 'When we play against non-coastal teams, we know we will win somehow. We are beach boys, familiar with the sand and sea, so we are always confident against these teams. We should have won this match with a bigger margin though,' he added. For the uninitiated, beach soccer is different than the soccer that's played on grass turf. For one thing, there are five players a side. For another, it's a much shorter game with three periods of 12 minutes each. There are eight states each in the boys' and girls' categories and they are divided into two pools, and the top two teams from each pool will reach the semis. (ANI)
