Thursday, December 19, 2019

Med student wins gold in nat’l swimming event

TNN | Dec 17, 2019, 04.24 AM IST

Salem: A second year MBBS student of Government Medical College in Salem won the gold and the bronze in two different categories in the all-India medical university swimming competition in New Delhi on Sunday.

V S Gokulnath of Chennai secured the first place in 100m freestyle and the bronze in 50m butterfly categories. He said about 500 participants from 50 medical universities across the country had took part in the competition. “Most participants were good and it was a tough competition,” he said.

Tamil Nadu won the overall championship with eight golds, 11 silvers and 4 bronzes.

Gokulnath started swimming when he was in Class IV. Two years later in 2009, he took part in the first swimming competition, where he did not win any medal. Taking that as a challenge, Gokulnath started to train hard. In the same year, he won the bronze medal in the state level school competition. “That medal boosted my confidence level,” he told TOI.

From 2010, he was made eligible to participate in the national-level competitions. He won four medals including gold in the backstroke category. He also participated in an international competition in US in 2017 and went up to the semi-final.

Gokulnath said his aim is to win a gold in the 2024 Olympics.

Gokulnath said when concentrating on his studies, he could not take up swimming training. “I had gained nearly 15kg when I was preparing for exams. But I will concentrate both on education and a gold in the Olympics,” he said.

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