Brothers help taekwondo deliver big punch on final day, Rodali adds gritty gold

Ponda: Since 1994 when Goa first won a medal at the National Games, taekwondo has been in the forefront of the medal hunt, winning honours at every edition of the multidiscipline sporting event.

Theophine Lowe, Sunil Sharma, Angela de Abreu and Prajakta Mishal all won gold medals in 1994. Since then, taekwondo has provided a rich haul of medals, except last year in Gujarat when the sport was dropped due to factionalism within the federation.

At home, everyone expected Goa to win big. But until the concluding day, there was no medal in sight.

“We just didn’t know what was happening,” said coach Theophile. “There were sure gold-medal winners, but they lost quite unexpectedly. Maybe it’s the pressure of playing at home.”

In the end, it was left to the ‘home’ boys to deliver the goods.

At a time when everything seemed lost, brothers P. Anand and P. Saravana Kumar won the first two medals in the sport this year. Anand, the elder one at 33, won gold in the over 87kg category, while Saravana had to settle for the silver in the under-80 category.

The brothers from Ponda had won a gold and silver at the National Games 2015 in Kerala.

That both had given up competitive taekwondo since then and taken up jobs in coaching and teaching made the victory all the more special.

“I am really happy my brother Saravana has won silver,” said Anand. “Last time too we had won. This time, I didn’t get much time to train for the Games because I did not get permission from my department (Sports Authority of Gujarat). I got only one month to prepare. I was very heavy.

“Just one-and-a-half months before, there was Nationals in Assam and I lost in the semifinals because of my fitness. Eventually, I read my opponents in the nationals and I practiced and combined hard work with smart work. You can say my experience helped me.”

While Anand defeated R. Pritam of Karnataka, Saravana found Delhi’s Shivansh, Asian Games 2023 participant, too hot to handle in the final.

Besides the brothers, Rodali Barua added to Goa’s joy on the concluding day with a gold in the over-73kg category.

Among the more established taekwondo players on the national circuit, Rodali had no trouble putting it across Prabhalika (Karnataka) in the final, but had to weather a storm in the semifinal against Maharashtra’s Namrata.

“This gold means a lot to me because since the last three months we are training for this medal and I am very happy about it,” Rodali, who moved to Goa from Assam for the National Games, told TOI. “The level of competition was really good. The semifinal was pulsating. Everyone has supported me a lot here, and I am really grateful for that.”
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