All-rounder Aryan Surya making waves

Bengaluru: Aryan Surya’s mantra in life is simple — if you are interested in something, give it 100% and you can excel in it. The 13-year-old from Bengaluru won many laurels in chess, tennis and karate before taking up cricket and most recently boxing.
In the ongoing state Mini Olympics, Aryan won gold in boxing (58-61kg) and is heading to Ballari for the National sub-junior boxing championship.Earlier, he had won US Junior Open (U-8) chess championship in 2016 and participated in the World Cadets Chess Championship in Batumi, Georgia the same year.
In 2019, he won gold in the International karate championship in Malaysia and is also a black belt in safety nunchaku. Currently, he attends cricket practice at Padukone-Dravid Centre for Sports Excellence and boxing under Captain Chandrashekhar.
“If you have the will to give 100 per cent to what you are doing, you can focus on multiple sports and be successful. Whenever I get an opportunity, I will try to give it a shot. Right now, I am focused on sports like boxing because it has age limits while I can pursue chess even after some time,” he said.
Aryan said the shift from the chessboard to the boxing ring didn’t change his mindset. “Whatever sport we play, we need to have a winning attitude. You go inside as a winner and come out as a winner. Maybe we need to be more alert in boxing as it is a combat sport,” Aryan added.
An eighth standard student at the Jain Heritage School, Hebbal, Aryan started pursuing chess, tennis and karate as a six-year-old. “His grandfather was a chess player and Aryan started learning chess to beat him. Aryan took it very seriously and picked up things very fast. And then we made him train under International Master BS Shivananda,” said Aryan’s mother Amitha Sunil.
Aryan’s father Sunil, who is a builder from Chikmagalur, also played cricket at the local level. “It was during the lockdown period that he developed interest in boxing and pursued it further. We are very happy that he is now headed for the Nationals,” she added.