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MUMBAI: Not lengthy after setting down her hockey stick in Ranchi final Sunday, Satara-based defender Vaishnavi Phalke picked up an ice-cream stick. Having sworn off sweets for rigorous coaching, the 20-year-old allowed herself the frozen butterscotch delight previous midnight after India’s flawless 4-0 victory towards Japan within the remaining of the Women’s Asian Champions Trophy.
Inspired by the 2007 Shah Rukh-starrer ‘Chak De! India’, Phalke is the youngest of the crop of daughters of farmers, mechanics and day by day wagers from the state powering the nationwide girls’s hockey staff.A majority of those new queens of artificial grass -Akshata Dhekale, Rutuja Pisal, Kajal Atpadkar, Pooja Shendge, Swati Jadhav, Bhagyashree Shinde and Pragya Bhonsle – grew up among the many dried pure grass in drought-prone Phaltan taluka in Satara.
Once dominated by the city elite from Pune, girls’s hockey, which has spawned eight girls Olympians within the state, together with former skipper Eliza Nelson whose eight-year profession is bookended by two golds, now sees a bevy of rustic gamers not solely mastering the craft of passing, regaining and overlaying up underneath the gaze of European coaches similar to former Dutch participant Johanna (Janneke) Schopman but in addition talking to the media in measured English.
Among them is 20-year-old Vaishnavi Phalke, who helped the staff make up for the Asian Games bronze with a shiny gold on the biennial six-nation Women’s Asian Champions Trophy that made her father Vitthal Phalke – a former wrestler – “very happy”.
Even because the medal now awaits a showcase and the checking account awaits the Rs 3 lakh money prize, Vaishnavi, who made a star debut within the senior facet with three objectives at Cape Town at first of the 12 months, is again to dodging sugar in Asu, a big village close to the sugar-factory-boasting Phaltan Taluka. “My mother is tired of me,” says the calm midfielder, who has been refusing to eat even do-it-yourself sweets for 5 Diwalis now.
It’s no coincidence {that a} majority of the ladies in blue skirt grew up Phaltan taluka. “Unke naseeb mein shayad main tha (Perhaps, meeting me was part of their destiny),” says 47-year-old Vikas Bhujbal, a former volleyball participant and native major faculty sports activities trainer, credited with the making of Olympian archer Pravin Jadhav, who determined to take the ladies underneath his wing in 2009.
Keen to observe the children hailing from close by villages similar to Sarde and Kokli prosper via the equaliser known as sports activities, Bhujbal launched many to Krida Prabodhini, a state-run sports activities programme meant to harness the expertise of eight to 14-year-olds from Maharashtra’s impoverished pockets.
Those who handed the cluster of checks – together with sprinting and throwing a physiotherapy ball – have been later picked for coaching at numerous Krida Prabodhini centres within the state, most prominently at Pune’s Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex, the place Bhujbal would typically arrive afterward his motorcycle – a father determine bearing talcum powder, hair oil and different necessities from properties virtually three hours away.
Phalke was then a mere eight-year-old viewers member who had watched her father lock arms with different glistening males in Kesari Kusti, a homespun wrestling contest. Having spent the primary few months working, swimming and crying, she selected hockey as her self-discipline of alternative. “We played against the boys,” says Phalke, including that dwelling as much as their velocity and power helped her enhance her recreation.
In 2012, Phaltan would quietly decide Akshata Dhekale because the pre-teen sprinted via faculty grounds in shorts for the primary time. “My own classmates looked at me as if I was odd,” says the defender. “I could sense them wondering: ‘How is she running in shorts?'”
Today, the grass is greener. Like Rutuja Pisal, a labourer’s daughter who performs for Union Bank of India, Dhekale – who made her senior worldwide debut final 12 months within the FIH Hockey Pro League mini-series towards Germany – has a job. She performs for the Indian Oil Corporation, filling at age 22 the native void she had felt as a baby. “We had no women role models from our region in hockey,” says Dhekale.
While Arjuna and Padma Shri veteran Eliza Nelson believes extra AstroTurf stadiums would assist extra girls take up the sport, Dhekale feels higher job prospects would assist kill the self-doubt that plagues the security-craving 22 12 months olds within the staff.
Inspired by the 2007 Shah Rukh-starrer ‘Chak De! India’, Phalke is the youngest of the crop of daughters of farmers, mechanics and day by day wagers from the state powering the nationwide girls’s hockey staff.A majority of those new queens of artificial grass -Akshata Dhekale, Rutuja Pisal, Kajal Atpadkar, Pooja Shendge, Swati Jadhav, Bhagyashree Shinde and Pragya Bhonsle – grew up among the many dried pure grass in drought-prone Phaltan taluka in Satara.
Once dominated by the city elite from Pune, girls’s hockey, which has spawned eight girls Olympians within the state, together with former skipper Eliza Nelson whose eight-year profession is bookended by two golds, now sees a bevy of rustic gamers not solely mastering the craft of passing, regaining and overlaying up underneath the gaze of European coaches similar to former Dutch participant Johanna (Janneke) Schopman but in addition talking to the media in measured English.
Among them is 20-year-old Vaishnavi Phalke, who helped the staff make up for the Asian Games bronze with a shiny gold on the biennial six-nation Women’s Asian Champions Trophy that made her father Vitthal Phalke – a former wrestler – “very happy”.
Even because the medal now awaits a showcase and the checking account awaits the Rs 3 lakh money prize, Vaishnavi, who made a star debut within the senior facet with three objectives at Cape Town at first of the 12 months, is again to dodging sugar in Asu, a big village close to the sugar-factory-boasting Phaltan Taluka. “My mother is tired of me,” says the calm midfielder, who has been refusing to eat even do-it-yourself sweets for 5 Diwalis now.
It’s no coincidence {that a} majority of the ladies in blue skirt grew up Phaltan taluka. “Unke naseeb mein shayad main tha (Perhaps, meeting me was part of their destiny),” says 47-year-old Vikas Bhujbal, a former volleyball participant and native major faculty sports activities trainer, credited with the making of Olympian archer Pravin Jadhav, who determined to take the ladies underneath his wing in 2009.
Keen to observe the children hailing from close by villages similar to Sarde and Kokli prosper via the equaliser known as sports activities, Bhujbal launched many to Krida Prabodhini, a state-run sports activities programme meant to harness the expertise of eight to 14-year-olds from Maharashtra’s impoverished pockets.
Those who handed the cluster of checks – together with sprinting and throwing a physiotherapy ball – have been later picked for coaching at numerous Krida Prabodhini centres within the state, most prominently at Pune’s Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex, the place Bhujbal would typically arrive afterward his motorcycle – a father determine bearing talcum powder, hair oil and different necessities from properties virtually three hours away.
Phalke was then a mere eight-year-old viewers member who had watched her father lock arms with different glistening males in Kesari Kusti, a homespun wrestling contest. Having spent the primary few months working, swimming and crying, she selected hockey as her self-discipline of alternative. “We played against the boys,” says Phalke, including that dwelling as much as their velocity and power helped her enhance her recreation.
In 2012, Phaltan would quietly decide Akshata Dhekale because the pre-teen sprinted via faculty grounds in shorts for the primary time. “My own classmates looked at me as if I was odd,” says the defender. “I could sense them wondering: ‘How is she running in shorts?'”
Today, the grass is greener. Like Rutuja Pisal, a labourer’s daughter who performs for Union Bank of India, Dhekale – who made her senior worldwide debut final 12 months within the FIH Hockey Pro League mini-series towards Germany – has a job. She performs for the Indian Oil Corporation, filling at age 22 the native void she had felt as a baby. “We had no women role models from our region in hockey,” says Dhekale.
While Arjuna and Padma Shri veteran Eliza Nelson believes extra AstroTurf stadiums would assist extra girls take up the sport, Dhekale feels higher job prospects would assist kill the self-doubt that plagues the security-craving 22 12 months olds within the staff.
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