An award to remember

It was a very special birthday gift for him. "I won the Arjuna Award,” an elated Rehan Poncha informed Parsiana on the e-mail from the US on August 5, 2010. "The actual presentation is on August 29 in New Delhi but the official list was released three days ago. (Poncha celebrated his 24th birthday on August 3.) I am currently training in Los Angeles (LA) for the Commonwealth Games (CWG) in Delhi in October and the Asian Games in China.”

Poncha was among the 15 sportspersons named for the Award this year and the only swimmer to be so honored. The Government of India instituted the Arjuna Awards in 1961. To be eligible for the Award, a sportsperson "should not only have had good performance consistently for the previous three years at the international level with excellence for the year for which the Award is recommended, but should also have shown qualities of leadership, sportsmanship and a sense of discipline,” describes Wikipedia. The Award carries a cash prize, a bronze statuette of Arjuna (the peerless archer and the third of the five Pandava brothers of the Hindu epic Mahabharata after whom the award is named) and a scroll.

From becoming sub junior national champion in the 1990s to winning a plethora of medals of every hue and setting new national records, Poncha also has to his credit successive Best Athlete awards at India’s National Games, a rare achievement in an all-India event that includes several disciplines besides swimming. He swam at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and aims to qualify for the London Olympics in 2012.

With the XIX CWG mired in controversy and crisis situations, media limelight has been on everything but the preparations and prospects of the athletes! Giving sports buffs a sneak peek in a full page preview of what to expect from the Indians scheduled to participate in different disciplines, The Times of India of August 19, 2010 lists Sandeep Sejwal, Virdhawal Khade and Poncha as "the Indian stars to look out for” in aquatics. Poncha has been in the US since April, honing his skills with intensive training at the University of Southern California. "For the first two-and-a-half months Rehan was on a government scholarship from the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. We subsequently extended his training there at our own expense. Soon after the presentation ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan, he will go back to LA and return to Delhi towards the end of September for the CWG,” says his father Jehangir.

While the workouts in India were more oriented towards endurance and stamina, training techniques in the US build power and speed. "In LA, Rehan gets to train with special apparatus and groups, swimming alongside world and Olympic champions. We had been looking to do this for the last one-and-a-half years but scholarships take a long time coming and are of shorter duration,” Jehangir explains. The chlorine in the pool in the US has bleached Rehan’s hair and the same thing had happened during his stint in Australia too, he adds laughingly.

Poncha is only the second Zoroastrian to win the Arjuna Award in swimming. As per Wikipedia, Persis Madon secured that distinction way back in 1982. Thirteen other Zoroastrians are listed as having won the statuette in disciplines like yachting (six awardees), table tennis (two) and cycling, athletics, cricket, judo and weightlifting (one each).