Paris Olympics: Meet Dhinidhi Desinghu, India’s 14-year-old swimmer, who once hated getting into the water

Dhinidhi Desinghu had trouble speaking till she was about three years old. Even subsequently, she was shy and scared to approach others, preferring to keep to herself. That prompted her parents to involve her in a sport and swimming was an obvious choice as they had a pool right next to their home. Her parents just wanted Dhinidhi to make a few friends.

“But I didn’t like the water, I didn’t want to get in. I couldn’t get my feet into the pool, I couldn’t get my head inside. It was a struggle,” Dhinidhi tells The Indian Express. “I was six back then. When I returned the next year, I was still too scared.

“In fact, before I learnt how to swim, my parents did so. They got into the pool to make me feel comfortable and that is how it all started.”

Fast forward to 2024. Dhinidhi, all of 14, will be the youngest member of the Indian contingent at the Paris Olympics. The teenager made it in women’s 200m freestyle on a universality quota and will compete along with Indian swimming veteran Srihari Nataraj. A dream realised, much earlier than she had anticipated.

It wasn’t easy though. Even after she got comfortable in water, Dhinidhi had trouble handling the pressure. Her mother Jesitha recounts an anecdote from when Dhinidhi was around eight year old.

“I knew she had the talent. She does very well in the pool. But then at competitions, she felt the pressure. Either she would fall sick the previous day with a fever or she would vomit when she got to the pool for the event.”

A state-level open meet in Mangalore was the turning point. Jesita and Desinghu were starting to worry if they were putting their daughter under undue pressure, but decided to stick with it.

“I just decided to book a bus ticket. I too have motion sickness and we were continuously vomiting throughout. After reaching there, Dhinidhi said, ‘no, I am scared. I don’t want to swim’. But we had suffered so much to get there so I said we’ll just go to see the pool and then return if she was not up for it. She walked around the pool, turned to me and said, ‘I think I can do it’. She came up with the gold. That’s it. Thereafter, she never had any fever or vomiting before a competition,” Jesitha recalls.

Prodigious talent

As of now, Dhinidhi has the distinction of being the youngest female swimmer to win seven gold medals at the National Games. She already holds the national record in women’s 200m freestyle, and has been to the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games.

Dhinidhi trains at Dolphin Aquatics in Bengaluru, which is headed by Dronacharya awardee Nihar Ameen, and is coached by Madhu Kumar. The youngster recalls not even understanding the basic terms of swimming when she joined the academy.

“I knew the strokes… backstroke, breaststroke, and (butter) fly. But that was all I knew. There were all these kids who were around 13. And then there was one like me, just nine years old. I was scared to ask for help. I didn’t know what to do.”

But Madhu recognised the talent she had once he saw her swim in Rajkot in 2019. And once she got past the initial hurdles, Dhinidhi proved to be a quick learner.

“Since she’s been with us here at Dolphins, there’s never a day when she hasn’t worked hard,” Madhu says. “There are times when we have to call her out of the pool, as we know she’s struggling and don’t want to push her. But she’ll be adamant. It’s the passion she has for swimming. She is also ready to make every sacrifice for that. She knows she cannot hang out with friends, cannot go to birthday parties, but she knows what it takes.”

Dhinidhi has the distinction of being the youngest female swimmer to win seven gold medals at the National Games. (Dolphin Aquatics)

At Paris, Dhinidhi is hoping that her experience of the Asian Games will help. She didn’t have the best of swims there but there was a lot to learn. Hangzhou was overwhelming for her.

“I realized that whatever I see on the screen is nothing like real life. We enter the stadium and the aura is so different. Standing on those blocks compared to watching on TV is so different. It felt a little scary but it has really helped me. I learned how the other competitors swim over there, how they focus on their food and how the (Athletes) village feels like, the way the buses go back and forth all the time,” she says. Dhinidhi also got the chance to meet Neeraj Chopra and get a picture with him during dinner.

Have a good time

Madhu, proud of Dhinidhi being an Olympian at 14, says all he wants from her is enjoying the occasion in Paris. “In 200m freestyle, her speed is really good in the first 50m but she can get better at finishing. If she can improve her third and fourth 50m segments, she can get a Personal Best. For Paris, that is our aim. If she can improve her PB, it will be good and then we have the next four years to prepare her for LA 2028,” the coach says.

Having Srihari alongside will help too, as Dhinidhi idolises him. She recalls meeting him as a kid and preserving his autograph from a meet when he turned up as the chief guest.

While most athletes speak about following the process, just focusing on day-to-day routines, Dhinidhi jots down everything in black and white. She has a diary where she writes about every workout session. In the back of that diary, she notes down the timings she wants to achieve, her best practice times, the national records and so on.

“I write all of it down so that in case I want to know what I have to aim for, I know how far I am. For me, setting goals is a little better because if I have something to work towards, it makes me realise why I am doing all this.”

Apart from the diary, Dhinidhi also has a blog. She says writing about her experiences gives her an outlet, and it might one day help someone else overcome the issues she faced as a kid.

She is also hoping to meet some of the world’s best sportspersons.

“I have made this little gift for Katie Ledecky… well, not a gift, more like a letter. I wrote her something actually last year and thought, ‘okay, if I get a chance to go to Paris, I would give this to her’. I still have it. So I’ll try to give it to her. And I am going to take a little book where I’ll ask everybody for signatures and pictures,” Dhinidhi says.

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For a shy kid who once struggled to speak and hated getting into the pool, she has come a long way. So much so that she now enjoys racing in relays, being part of teams. Once she started enjoying the adrenaline rush that came with competing, Dhinidhi knew this was it for her. And her dream was always to go to the Olympics.

“But now that I’m here, I want to reach for higher stuff. I want to see how much better I can be.”

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