PANJIM:Geetanjali Nagvekar struggled to stay in her lane during practice in the run-up to the Games, but stunned everyone as she managed to conquer a gold and a silver for India at the recently held Special Olympics in Berlin.
It was a battle that was fought by her coach Samantha Francesca Costa and others involved in the training of the special athlete.
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Geetanjali caught the attention of the coaches when she was made to run in a race in 2017. Samantha said: “It was obvious she had the talent and we knew she could strike it big in the future. When we first asked her to run, she was not interested. She wanted to pack her bags and go home. We had to be patient with her. There were several occasions when people raised questions about her and why we were so adamant about her participation. We had seen her potential and we knew we had to persist with her.”
It was Geetanjali’s parents who played a big role in ensuring she stayed on course. Reshmi, her mother, said: “Samantha said she had the talent to go far, and as such, we decided to support her. We live in Nerul and so my husband would drop her for practices”.
Geetanjali would train for 100 and 200 metres. She had the speed but used to change lanes continuously. The concept of a lane and sticking to it was difficult for her to understand. She rebelled against it. So, some obstacles were laid on the curves to ensure she understood the concept of running within the lanes.
The Special Olympics organising committee which has the authority to shift an athlete from an event recommended she be shifted from the 100 and 200 to 400 and 800 metres. The shift would mean a different approach to the race.
Geetanjali was used to running at full tilt over 100 and 200m. The new events would require her to pace herself and learn adjustment tactics. In the initial days she could not complete one round and as such it was decided to train her on the beach. She was then motivated to practice regularly, which she did.
At the Olympics, as she ran the 800 metres race, she was far ahead of the others and she kept looking behind and started slowing down. Samantha said the coaches started yelling and urging her to not slow down and to maintain the same tempo. She was also crying as there were cramps in the legs.
In Goa, when the parents were informed about the success of their daughter, there were tears of joy on the face of the parents. They were simply overjoyed.
Geetanjali and her parents are now looking for the day the Government would release the prize money totalling Rs10 lakh. They are also hoping that she would be gainfully employed.
