Ruchi Tiwari (18) describes herself as an ordinary girl who loves Hindi film music and eating out. But this Kanpur-based teenager bagged an extraordinary honour in July when she won a bronze medal at the 12th Asian Junior Athletics Meet (Tapai, Macau) in pole-vault, an athletics sub-sport which doesn’t appear even on the periphery of the radar screens of most Indians. Tiwari’s bronze created history; she is the first Indian ever to win a medal in this event at the international level.

The magnitude of this milestone achievement is amplified by the fact that Ruchi is the youngest of five siblings born into the family of a paan (betel leaf) vendor who couldn’t afford to buy her the mandatory pole for the sport, and that her left ring finger was partially cut off in a childhood accident. “My sister Shail, a national level pole-vaulter suggested that I try this sport,” she recalls. The switch (from table tennis) wasn’t easy because even the cheapest fiberglass pole is priced at Rs.30,000. Moreover there were no training facilities in Uttar Pradesh, so she went to live with her sister, an employee of Indian Railways posted in Gandhinagar (Gujarat), where she trained under Lakshmi Chandra Upadhyay, a warrant officer in the Indian Air Force.

Buoyed by her success against the odds, this undergraduate student of the Government Arts College, Gandhinagar has her eyes set firmly on the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, for which she is putting in seven to eight hours of practice daily. With her coach transferred to Bangalore, she has applied for admission into the Sports Authority of India Academy for Excellence in the garden city. “But their condition is that my coach will not be allowed to ‘interfere’ in my training and that I will have to make do with the high jump coach at the academy. The two events are vastly different,” she says, explaining her hesitation.

While Ruchi’s family, which lives in a one-room tenement in Kanpur, eggs her on, she is beset by monetary anxieties. “My sister’s Rs.5,000 monthly salary is not enough to meet all our needs. We have approached politicians including chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav. So far we haven’t got an appointment,” she rues.

But this can-do sportswoman is determined to succeed. “My burning ambition is to win the country’s first ever pole-vault gold. My parents keep telling me I am better than a 100 sons put together. I’m determined not to let them down,” she says.

More spring to your step!

Vidya Pandit (Lucknow)

M. Satvik

It was a memorable international debut for Bangalore-based M. Satvik at the Asian junior chess championship (AJCC) in Tehran (Iran) this June. This eight-year-old student of Poorna Prajna Education Society, Bangalore, bested around 40 other contestants to bag a bronze at AJCC in the under-eight category. In a thrilling mind-game battle which lasted almost four hours, Satvik made deft moves to defeat compatriot top seed Ch Mohinesh while settling for a draw with the eventual champion, Prince Bajaj. “I came extremely close to winning the gold medal. But one wrong move cost me the top spot,” he recalls ruefully.

Rated 1,940 worldwide by FIDE (Federation Internationale des Echecs), Satvik is the second youngest chess player ever to be ranked by FIDE. “My first international tournament was a wonderful learning experience. Playing without my coach was a drawback, but I had my laptop on which I have saved major chess games. Studying them helped me,” he says. Unsurprisingly this class III student’s trophies include the 2006 national and state level under-ten and numerous inter-city and school chess championships.

For this chess prodigy, playing the popular mind game began at the tender age of four, as he watched his elder brother M. Suraj — a state and nationally ranked chess player — win medals and encomiums in tournaments across the country. “Suraj and my mother, who is also a good player, coached me initially. Later, as I started winning state-level tournaments my parents placed me under a professional coach,” says Satvik.

An academic topper, whose parents are both doctors, Satvik trains seriously, with three hours of intensive practice daily. On weekends the training extends to five hours. Satvik’s coach and former national chess champion Arvind Shastri, is an admirer of the aspiring grandmaster’s concentration and logical thinking. “Satvik plays a very sound, strategic and tactical game. He definitely has the potential to win international tournaments,” says Shastri.

Nor is this young prodigy’s interest restricted to sedentary sports. Satvik plays basketball and cricket, although he has set his sights on becoming an international chess grandmaster. “After I become a grandmaster I want to follow my parents and help unwell and poor people,” he says.

Given his skillful moves on the chessboard, juggling a medical and international chess career shouldn’t be difficult for this wonder kid. 

Madhurima Duttagupta (Bangalore)