old M Sukumar who not only plays
sports, but is also an avid collector of trivia and tidbits related
everything to World records and Olympic records of all games
alongside achievements of sportsperson of par excellence.
He has in his record achievements of
every sports persons who ever took part in every World and Olympic
Championships held so far including that of National Championships.
Since 1985 he has collected innumerable clippings from newspapers and
sport magazines, all pasted neatly on a cardboard in a chronological
order according to the year of the achievements.
He has maintained separate profiles of
shooter Abhinava Bindra, Davis cup players Leander Paes and Mahesh
Bhupathi, weight lifter Malleshwari, wrestler Sushil Kumar, athletes
PT Usha, Anju Boby George, upcoming athletes who will be representing
Olympics like Ashwini Poonappa, Jwala, Vikas Gowda and several
others.
Everywhere 'Olympia'
Naming his house 'Olympia', he has
displayed a football atop his water
tank and has also named his vehicle
'Olympus' (after the Greek Goddess). A poster of some sports person
adorns every door, alamariah and wall in his house. For his marriage
invitation card he had art work of handball printed on them. He has
even named his children MS Kishore as Nabuthaka Taguchi of Japan and
MS Preetham as Abibikila of Ethiopia.
Achievements
Sukumar, a retired Canara Bank officer
has represented Karnataka consecutively for 27 years in the National
Swimming and Handball competitions and various other athletic events.
He has won several gold, silver and bronze medals especially in
diving from a spring board.
He was selected as one of the
international commentator during Commonwealth and Asian Games.
Incidentally he was the first Handball coach for Nation Institute of
Sports, Punjab and the first Mysorean to win diving championships in
Swimming.
He says, “there are several good
commentators (announcers) in Mysore, but it is sad that announcers
are brought in from Bangalore during Dasara. Also the deterioration
of of peoples involvement in sports and games is hurting me a lot.
Though the next Olympics is fast approaching, no decision has been
made to select and train good players from city.”
In 2002, he has started Vijayanagar
Sports and Games Club and since then has trained hundreds of budding
players. By next month he is planning to open a exclusive football
club for girls.
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