The unofficial skating capital of the country struggles to retain players

Shruti Janani Raja is a familiar sight at Shivaji Park every day. The 16-year-old international skating champ, who has represented India in two World Championships and one Asian Championship, might call it quits this year.
But she still comes to skate around the park during her summer holidays. "Sometimes I come to the rink to assist my coach with the younger lot of kids," says Shruti, who is waiting for her EAMCET results and is hoping to bag a seat in a medical college with the help of a sports quota.
"Since I'll soon be pursuing my MBBS, I will obviously not be able to compete professionally anymore as it gets difficult to balance a professional degree and a professional sport," reasons one of the last few skaters in Vizag to have gone international. The next batch of skaters in the city are very young and still training.
Shruti is just one amongst the numerous national and international level skaters that Vizag — which has great infrastructure and passionate coaches — has been producing year after year.
But like her, unfortunately, almost all of them have been dropping out of their sporting careers after finishing their higher secondary education. Brahma Teja, who quit professional skating in 2012 after his graduation, says that he was in fact, one of the last few skaters to have pursued the sport for so long.
"I quit very late. Most of my contemporaries were quitting after they completed their intermediate itself. At least, I made use of the sports quota as you anyway don't earn any money in this sport.
You just do it out of love for the game and the sporting glory, of course. Finally, I had to give up because I had to do something professionally. I can't just sit at home and depend on my dad's money," says the former skating champ, who is now working in Bangalore for a Sports Retail showroom as department manager.
With so many skaters calling it quits so early, there is a steady decline in takers for the sport, professionally at least, points out Bhrama. "When we were young, we had seniors whom we looked up to and who we used to learn from.
Now, it's just becoming a recreational sport for the current generation. No one wants to pursue it professionally," he says.
The Glory days are gone
Vizag was once the undisputed champion in skating, having won medal after medal and even the Overall Championship Award for almost a decade, till 2012.
The Overall Championship comprises of events like speed skating, artistic skating and roller hockey, of which artistic skating has been Vizag players' strong point.
P Satyanarayana, the coach for artistic skating at Shivaji Park, says, "There isn't a lot of infrastructure and facilities for artistic skating in other cities. Vizag alone has an exclusive rink with four dedicated coaches.
Out of the 50 participants for artistic skating in the nationals, almost 25 are from AP alone and almost all of them come back with a medal." Speed skating on the other hand has been on a steady decline since 2008.
While in 2005-2006, there were at least 20-25 gold medals in speed skating, in the past few years, only around 10 gold medals have been earned. According to the coaches, skating has been a silent underdog of the sporting world and has been taken for granted over the years.
K Kalyan, coach for the Indian Skating team, talking about the glory days of skating, says, "Till 2006, all the medals would come to the Indian team and only the left over medals would go to others."
Bhagirath, member of the Roller Skating Federation of India (RSFI), adds, "For other sports such as tennis, even when there is a ranking of Under-200, we celebrate it, but when it comes to skaters, not many know that there have been several winners from India, and that too from Vizag, who got Under-10 ranking."
Skating takes a backseat now
The coaches lament that the current state of affairs is especially dismal because unlike many other sports, the problem is not infrastructure.
There are six rinks in Vizag — three in Vuda Park, one at Shivaji Park, one in Murali Nagar and another one at the Steel Plant that was set up in the early 90s.
The issue is that the number of skaters taking up the sport seriously is on the decline. SV Raja, coach for speed skating, says "Back then, skaters took the sport seriously and pursued it even after their graduation.
But now, everyone quits after they finish their intermediate." P Satyanarayana admits that managing studies can be a tough task because as a sport, skating demands a lot from these young players.
"Apart from staying away from school and college during the competitions, skaters need to invest another 60 days of vigorous practise sessions before the competitions.
While this can be done with good time management, parents think that too much time is taken off studies and as such academic performance could suffer because of this. So, now kids take it up as a recreational hobby only," he says.
Lack of sponsors
Skaters however, reveal that another big deterrent is the fact that there is not much scope in this sport after the national and international championships. Brahma says, "Initially, you do it out of passion for the game.
But after a while, you start thinking about earning money too, especially because skating is quite an expensive sport.
And there are not many sponsors who come forward to support. The World Championship is the only time we are all sent together as a team. The other times, we have to fend for ourselves.
At least, if the RSFI supported us, we would consider pursuing the sport longer, but that's not happening." Revealing how much it costs to participate in big tournaments, Shruti says, "Any international championship costs anything over '2 lakhs.
We have to either spend from our own pockets or look out for private sponsors, who are hard to come by." While the first ever rink at Vuda Park was constructed with the help of Vuda, coaches feel the government should aid the sport in a bigger manner.
Kalyan says, "The bank track at Vuda Park is not in the best of conditions now and needs to be fixed. Also, there is a great need for more visibility and promotion of the sport, which is not being done at all."
Globally too, the skating scene needs to be more recognised. "If skating is included as a category in Olympics, there is a little hope for the game. Otherwise, I'm happy with my choice of staying away from it.
In fact, even in the future, my son were to take up skating, I would discourage him from the sport," says Bhrama.