Madikeri:
The picturesque plantation district of Kodagu has three stick-wielding aces – V R Raghunath, S V Sunil and S K Uthappa – representing India in the men’s field hockey competition at the London Olympics.

The coffee-growing outback with an area of 4,102 sqkm nestled in the Western Ghats is often celebrated as the cradle of Indian hockey. Among the more recognised of players from this region to have got Olympian status are MP Ganesh and BP Govinda, who played in the terrorist-hit 1972 Games in Munich. Govinda appeared on the Olympic stage for a second time four years later in Montreal. MM Somaya played for India in 1980 and 1984 before leading the team in Seoul in 1988 when B K Subramani was also in the mix.

here are two other Kodavas in the fray at the London Games this time – big-serving Rohan Bopanna and badminton’s glamour girl Ashwini Ponnappa. However, it is the hockey players who have long held a special place in the hearts of Indian sporting fans, even if the public wakes up to the magic of the sport once every four years.

S V Suresh has been the guiding force behind younger brother Sunil ever since their parents passed away. The older sibling is overjoyed that the Madikeri boy will be donning the India colours in UK.

The 27-year-old drag-flicker Raghunath is the son of Vokkaligara Ramachandra, a native of Hathur near Gonikoppal. Raghunath, religious in routine, has been playing the game since he was nine . Sannuvanda Neeraja and Vasanth Kushalappa the parents of Uthappa are natives of Hebbale Bevarapura in the southern part of the district.

In all there are five players from the state in the Indian side with Ignace Tirkey and captain and custodian Bharath Chetri completing the line-up.

Olympian A B Subbaiah applauded Hockey India (HI) in recognizing the merit of the players. “Hockey Karnataka came forward to encourage and support the competent players. HI selected 32 players for honorary remuneration. Seven of those players are from Kodagu. That’s good for us,” he said.

Pandanda Kuttappa is the founder president of the Kodava Cup, a hockey festival for families which sees a couple of hundred teams from the area compete each summer for a three-week period. The event was started in 1997, for the 850 families of the community. There’s no age or sex bar for the competition, which has a large number of mixed-gender teams in the fray. Kuttappa said the tournament was a grooming ground for young talent.

In London, the eight-time Olympic gold medalists will start their campaign against the Netherlands on July 30. India are in Pool B along with Germany, Korea, New Zealand, Belgium and Netherlands. The matches will be played at the attractive setting of the Riverbank Arena. India will watch, and Kodagu will cheer.

source: http://www.articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com / Home> City> Hubli / by G. Rajendra, TNN / July 28th, 2012

Sport: Hockey
Position: Mid-field

About SK Uthappa:

Belonging to the new breed of Indian hockey players who are both fearless and are adaptable on varying astro-turfs, Uthappa is an attacking mid-fielder who is on the move with passionate ease.

After stealing the show in the National championship in Bhopal, this player from Coorg has steadily worked his way to find a spot in the national team.

A well-build helps him in his game and his skill with the hockey stick has even had national coach Michael Nobbs rating him highly.

source: http://www.sports.ndtv.com / Home> Olympics 2012 / Friday, July 20th, 2012

Every time, little Joshna visited her ailing great-grand uncle K.M. Cariappa in hospital, she would eye the bottle of candy by his bed. But the country’s first Field Marshal would stop her advances and agree to part with the treat on one condition.

“He insisted that I sing the national anthem for him. And each time, I obliged for the sake of the toffee,” says Joshna Chinappa, the 25-year-old pin-up girl of Indian squash.

As trivial as it may seem, this incident probably sowed the first seeds of national pride in the mind of the Coorg girl.

Joshna, like her illustrious ancestor, has done the country proud with her prowess in the glass court.

As she talks about her childhood sitting pretty in skinny jeans and a printed tee, I glance around the sparsely-furnished room. The first thing that catches the eye is a large, framed photograph of Joshna.

She strikes a starlet-like pose with oversized glares covering her eyes and open hair framing her longish face.

Next to the picture is a wooden and glass cabinet but I’m surprised to find no proud displays of her many trophies and shields.

The only other piece of furniture, apart from the chairs we sit on and a round coffee table, is a mattress, strewn with cushions, on the floor.

“We are renovating and so, most items have been packed in boxes,” Joshna’s mother says as she walks in and catches me surveying the room.

I spot a couple of broken racquets on the mattress even as Mrs. Chinappa attempts to clear the mess. Joshna looks slightly disturbed and asks her mum to throw the racquets away.

“I don’t want to see another broken racquet,” she says.

A little over two months ago, Joshna bounced back from a painful knee injury that kept her out of action for eight months, to help India win its first gold medal in the Asian Championship in Kuwait.

Weeks later, she went on to win her maiden Chennai Open tournament.

“It wasn’t easy. The first month after the surgery, I could barely walk. At one point, I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to play again,” she says.

In August 2011, while playing in the Hamptons Open in New York, Joshna fell, tearing a ligament in her right knee.

But all that’s in the past now and if anything, she is glad to have had an experience that, she says, changed her outlook towards life. “The poet Alfred Tennyson said, ‘The shell must break before the bird can fly.’ I think the verse best describes my life at the moment,” says Joshna who idolises sprint queen P.T. Usha for her determination in the face of adversities.

‘Hated going to school’

Joshna’s entry into squash at the age of 10 was an excuse to get away from class tests and homework. “I hated going to school and decided the only way out was to take up active sports. But my mum would have none of it,” she says.

Her parents made sure she studied and got through school and college.

Joshna went on to do a Bachelor’s in English literature from Ethiraj College. “Of course, today I’m glad I earned a degree,” she smiles, and one can’t help but notice that her trademark braces are off. “I finally got them removed after 10 years. It was a nightmare,” she shudders.

Not a party animal anymore

A typical day for Joshna begins at 7.30 a.m. when she wakes up and heads for training.

This is followed by a workout at the gym session, breakfast, and later, lunch.

The second training session begins in the afternoon and the third, one later in the evening. “On most days, it is late in the night by the time I get home,” she says.

At the end of a long and tiring day, she prefers the company of solitude.

“I hole up in my bedroom with some music and nobody dare knock at my door,” she says with a near-menacing look in her eyes. She uses the time to surf the web and catch up on news from across the world. Seems like a pretty sober life for a young celebrity.

“I used to go out and party a lot until a few years ago. But I train a lot harder now than I used to. It is tiring and not worth the while to do anything else after spending so many hours working out during the day.”

Joshna is the youngest national champion in the country having clinched the senior title as a 14-year-old, a record unsurpassed by any Indian till date.

She has participated in numerous international tournaments and her passport is bursting at its seams.

Rice, rasam and pickle

And like most Indians, it is home-cooked food she misses the most when travelling. “I am extremely fond of south Indian cuisine, and cannot live without rice, rasam and mango pickle,” she says.

Though she is quite strict about her dietary intake, it is only human to indulge in the occasional binge. “Chocolates are my weakness and there’s nothing I like more than curling up with a bar of my favourite chocolate,” she says.

As independent and carefree as she sounds, Joshna is quite close to her family. She is especially fond of her younger brother who sneaks in an extensive ‘wishlist’ in her kitbag each time she goes abroad. “He is very shy and, I think, a little scared to ask too many things of me directly,” says the doting sister.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / Home> In School / by Julie Merin Varghese / Chennai, July 09th, 2012