Chennai: What began off as a day pastime for a six-year-old on a badminton court docket in KK Nagar, a middle-class neighbourhood in south Chennai, has now made Anandkumar Velkumar a world champion. The 22-year-old, who’s pursuing a bachelor’s diploma in laptop engineering, turned the primary Indian to win a medal within the Speed Skating World Championship — and that too a gold. It was his second medal within the occasion presently on in Beidaihe, China. The Tamil Nadu boy began his historic run with bronze in males’s 500m inline dash. Then got here the gold in males’s 1000m inline dash. “I have dreamt of this moment, and it finally came true. It is hard to put it into words, but I am very happy to have won and sung the national anthem on the podium. The fact that I am the first Indian skater to achieve this feat makes it special,” Anandkumar informed TOI. Anandkumar nonetheless has two extra occasions left within the competitors and he could nicely add to his tally. While that is absolutely his greatest second, the skater made his mark as a junior as nicely. In 2021, he turned the primary Indian to safe a medal at the Junior World Championships. A weeks in the past, he achieved one other milestone as he turned the primary skater from the nation to earn a medal at the World Games, which is taken into account the equal of the Olympics for non-Olympic sports. “This year has been the best of my career so far. I went from becoming the Asian champion to winning a medal at the World Games, and finally, I am a world champion,” Anandkumar, a pupil of the College of Engineering in Guindy, mentioned. Anandkumar’s skating journey began on a cement badminton court docket. It was his sister, Subi Suvetha, an India worldwide skater, who impressed him to take up the game. Till the age of 12, Anandkumar was into quad skating. He later moved to inline. He started coaching below coach Anna Raja after which joined Sathyamoorthy, with whom he has had an affiliation for near a decade. The turning level was the junior Worlds silver in 2021. “My aim was to finish in the top-10, but it turned out completely different. I exceeded my expectations, and it was the country’s first medal on the world stage (junior and senior). That experience motivated me to think bigger and train harder for the future,” he mentioned.
