Speedy Salunkhe by Urmi Kondhalkar XIA
Aabha Salunkhe is a national level athlete whose major events are 100m and 200m. She has won medals at the CBSE nationals in 2018.
Aabha first started running after her football coaches advice, after seeing her agility and speed during a game, her earliest memory related to the track was the first day of training at Sanas ground, when she was eleven. She remembers that day to be a tough- but still quite fun one. Little did she know what her future had in store for her. Her first achievement was a mere tear and half later at the PGSSA where she bagged two silvers and a gold.
Aabha first started running after her football coaches advice, after seeing her agility and speed during a game, her earliest memory related to the track was the first day of training at Sanas ground, when she was eleven. She remembers that day to be a tough- but still quite fun one. Little did she know what her future had in store for her. Her first achievement was a mere tear and half later at the PGSSA where she bagged two silvers and a gold.
According to Aabha,
getting selected and participating at Khelo India in 2018 has been her greatest
achievement to date. She bagged the sixth place in the 200m finals and stood
second in the Maharashtra relay.
Preparation for tournaments begins about 2
months before the actual dates. Coaches design specific workouts for the
athletes, which keep changing every two weeks. Aabha's training day begins at
6:30am and ends at 6:30 in the evening.
Her mantra for
coping with failure is to avoid overthinking and pondering over mistakes.
Instead, she believes in learning and moving on. Her hobbies range from arts
and crafts to music and dancing. She learned ballet for a year and has been
learning Kathak for over 4 years.
She doesn’t plan on
making running a career as she believes it to be short-lived and depends
greatly on her physical capabilities. She also does not view it as a money
making career due to the massive influence of politics involved in almost every
competition. She does however plan to pursue designing, zoology or veterinary
sciences.
Her track related
ambitions are to represent India at the Asian games and eventually the
Olympics. She also believes that kids should begin training at around the ages
of 12/ 13 yrs to ensure that they’re aware about their capabilities and are
serious about the sport.
She lives by a
quote by Thelma and Louise, “you get what you settle for."
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