Profile: Gagan Ullalmath
For Gagan Ullalmath, a lucky turn of events led to him receiving the Olympic quota in swimming. Gagan Ullalmath is little known but talented nonetheless.
Sport: Swimming
Born: 08/01/1992
Event: 1500m freestyle
About Gagan Ullalmath:
For the Karnataka born lad, Adaveeshiah Puttaveeraswamy Gagan Ullalmath, a lucky turn of events led to him receiving the Olympic quota in 1500m freestyle swimming. Hardly anybody, including the national coach Pradeep Kumar, was satisfied by the luck bestowed upon him by the World Swimming body (FINA).
The 'Universality' quota is provided to countries who have no swimmers clocking Olympic qualification time. India though had four swimmers - Virdhawal Khade, Sandeep Sejwal, Aaron D'Souza and Saurabh Sangvekar - who qualified under the 'B' standard mark.
The only checkbox that had to be ticked to receive the 'Universality' quota was participation at the 14th FINA World Championships, Shanghai 2011. Gagan clocked 8:21.23 in the 800m freestyle category there. This criterion blocked doors for the other contenders and the Karnataka youngster was undoubtedly left smiling.
For A.P. Gagan Ullalmath though, the success has not come purely by chance. At the Amritsar Nationals in 2008, he bagged four golds and booked a berth for the Youth Commonwealth Games. He also won the 400m Freestyle swimming Gold at the 2010 South Asian Games in Dhaka.
He was voted the 'best swimmer' in the Junior Swimming Nationals held at Jaipur in 2009, he won five individual golds back then. Three national records too were broken on the way.
Then, the same year he also qualified for Youth Olympics which were held in 2010. ÂÂ
It may be that FINA's rules are outdated or bad but Gagan Ullalmath remains the lone Indian swimmer at the London Olympics. It is his chance to silence his critics even if expecting a medal is too far fetched.
Previous Olympics: None