Despite factionalism, sqay wins Goa’s highest medals

Panaji: Goa ended up with astonishing 27 medals in sqay martial arts, and that too from a sport where two factions were fighting to field their own teams until last week.

It all started in spectacular style with Albert Ferrao winning gold at Fatorda on Wednesday.

The 16-year-old from Nerul was trailing 1-3 in the five-minute battle against Pothina Praveen of Andhra Pradesh. With only two and half minutes left on the clock, the Goan staged a remarkable comeback.

"I told myself that eight years of waiting, and hours of training, has brought me to this moment. I must not surrender," said Albert. He controlled his punches and kicks to accumulate points and made Praveen nervous.

"I could see I was in command. The scores were tied (5-5) at the end of regulation time. I surged ahead with one point and clinched gold," said the student St Xavier's college, Mapusa.

His gold was the start of something big. At the end of the day, Goa won 10 gold, 12 silver and five bronze medals in the combat sport to surge ninth on the medals tally. Sqay won the highest medals for Goa.

The next match was between his teammate and fellow trainee Parshuram Nakkaragundi and Arooj Wani of Jammu and Kashmir.

There too the Goan boy staged a comeback to win the second gold.

"I believe once we won the gold, it opened the floodgate and our boys and girls who trained for so long started dreaming big. We already had faith in ourselves, but I would like to believe that we set the tone for the day," said Albert.

Interestingly, the medal rush came from a sport where two factions were battling for control. Their battle had prompted parents to protest in-front of the Games headquarters at Taleigao. The factionalism within the federation caused a split in Goa, but as the results suggest, it did not impact the home team’s performance.



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