Mussoorie, Late last night, when Mussoorie was celebrating India’s victory over Pakistan at the World Cup. A new star was born, Mussoorie’s own 15-year-old Nandini Kumola was fighting it out in the Taekwondo ring under the Junior 59 kgs category at the 2nd International Taekwondo Championship, in Hyderabad where she claimed the gold medal.
The gold medalist, on her way home, managed to speak to us over umpteen messages and phone calls sounding tired, but not completely out, the winner was happy, “Of course! I was hundred percent sure that I would come back with a medal. I had given it my best and my coach had trained me well,” she tells me as she dedicates her win to her late father Dinesh Kumola.
Her coach, Shatrugan Chand who trained her for the past two and a half years had complete faith on his young prodigy and is a happy man today, “I did not have an iota of doubt that she would win. She was well prepared to play at that level. I had prepared her for the game which I had played myself and Nandini did not disappoint me. She fought her way up from 20 girls in her category and clenched the gold.”
Putting in hours of hard work, Nandini would train one hour in the morning and two to two and a half hour in the evening in the Olympic sport, Taekwondo. An accomplished black-belt, Nandini a class 9th commerce student managed to balance her studies as well as her passion for the game.
At the championship, Nandini Kumola was pitted against contestants 5 kgs above her own body weight, but that did not deter her. Nandini went on to fight until 2:00 a.m. in the morning, bringing with her the Gold medal.
The budding sportsperson from Mussoorie plans to get back into training-mode as soon as possible and prepare for the upcoming Asian Games and then like all sportsperson, a gold at the Olympics, is a dream she holds close to her heart, which am sure, is not too far away.
