Indian rower Dattu Baban Bhokanal, who was already out of the medal reckoning, finished 13th in the overall rankings in the men's single sculls at the Rio Olympic Games on Saturday.
He stood first in final C ranking race, with a time of 6:54.96, which was best among the four races he participated in the Games. Dattu's 13th place finish is the best by an Indian rower at the Olympics. The previous best was Sawarn Singh, who had finished 16th in the same event in the previous Olympics in London.
Like many villages in India, Talegaon Ruhi in Maharashtra's Nashik district suffers from an acute scarcity of water and is regularly affected by drought. Dattu grew up there, scared of even venturing near the canals in his village. Towards the end of 2012, a 20-year-old Dattu was introduced to rowing after earning employment with the Indian Army.
He remembers being gobsmacked at the idea of sports on water. It took young Dattu a year to overcome his fear of water. He learnt not just to navigate a rowing boat but also to swim. Four years on, Dattu is at the Olympic Games. As remarkable goes, his story is an apt description.
Last Tuesday, Dattu stepped hesitantly out of the athletes' village in Rio to speak to journalists. Earlier in the day at the bewitching Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas under the gaze of the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue, Dattu finished his single sculls quarterfinal in fourth place. He completed the 2000m course in a shade under seven minutes. Though he didn't do enough to progress towards the medal rounds, by shaving off more than 21 seconds from the timing he registered in the heats, Dattu sent out a reminder of his obvious talent.
In the first few times he attempted the sport, less than four years ago, Dattu was besieged by the dread of his boat capsizing. And here he was now on the biggest stage in all sport.
"I am satisfied with how I have performed," Dattu says in a gentle voice and with a shy smile. "I had hoped for more training time. I could only train for a couple of months in the US before coming here. Had I got more time to train, I could have improved even more. No player is ever fully happy, he always feels something has been left undone."
In Rio, Dattu's progress was carefully monitored by Miami-based rowing coach Rajpaul Singh Mokha. After nearly 35 years in the trade, first as a competitor and now as a coach, Mokha has an intimate understanding of the sport. He was brought on board by the army in the middle of 2015 and under his watch Dattu has embarked on a steep upward curve. He won silver at the Asian Rowing championships in Beijing in 2015 and another one in the qualifier in South Korea that booked his ticket to Rio.
"If he has proper training and support and he gets to go to two-three international competitions in a year in Europe or North America, he has a good chance of being in medal contention for Tokyo in 2020." Rajpaul Singh Mokha, rowing coach
"Just for him to be here is absolutely incredible," says Mokha. "You are asking a lot of any athlete to perform at this level not having had the experience. He has handled it very well and he definitely has the ability to do well. If he has proper training and support and he gets to go to two-three international competitions in a year in Europe or North America, he has a good chance of being in medal contention for Tokyo in 2020."
Mokha is convinced that strictly comparing technical expertise, Dattu is already among the best rowers in the world. The challenge over the next few years is for Dattu to get a lot stronger and fitter. A rower relies immensely on his body weight and muscle mass to generate the power he needs to propel the boat quickly towards the finish line. Dattu has identified aspects such as "specialised coaching, diet and fitness" for him to focus on as he targets success at the next Olympics.
Mokha's worry is that while he has an abundantly gifted ward, the ecosystem surrounding him may not allow him to reach full potential. "There is no plan about what we are doing, how we are getting to the finish line," Mokha says. "It is very random and not organised and there's no way to be successful at the Olympic level unless you have a set four-year plan, you commit to it and you have everyone supporting it 100%. That's the only way the athletes can do it."
But Dattu has already shown that he is not daunted by seemingly insurmountable challenges. The loss of his father to cancer in 2011 had forced him to take up a job at a petrol station outside his village. Once the army took him on board, he flowered, especially after moving to Pune to train at the Army Rowing Node in 2013. Within a year Dattu won two gold medals at the national games and finished fifth in the double sculls at the Asian Games in Incheon in 2014.
But setbacks continued on the personal front. His mother sustained a head injury in an accident and does not recognise Dattu or his two younger brothers any more -- and is oblivious of her son's journey to the other part of the world to compete against the very best in the business. Dattu hopes that one day she will be okay and there will be enough water in Talegaon Ruhi. But for now he must step into his boat, clasp his sculls and march forward. Rio was merely a pit stop.