Kathmandu, August 27

Swimming sensation Gaurika Singh is satisfied with her progress towards the historic bid to win gold medal in the South Asian Games when Nepal hosts the 13th edition of the regional sporting extravaganza in December.

Singh has already proved her calibre when she claimed one silver and three bronze medals in previous SA Games held in India four years ago. And she hogged the international limelight by becoming the youngest athlete of the Rio Olympic Games in Brazil in 2016. In domestic front, no swimmer can even give competition to her.

Nepal is preparing to host the swimming competition in the 25-metre heated swimming pool and that fascinated Singh.

“South Asian Games is a target meet for me and I am hoping to give my best on home soil. We are going to compete in short course pool which is an added advantage for me,” said Singh. “I am not going to promise anything right now but hopefully it will be gold for the country. I am serious about my target but I want to have fun at the same time,” she added.

Singh said the 12th SA Games achievements were history and she had improved on her performance since then. “I believe there is a lot of improvement in performance than the Games in India. I am not going to reveal it now as I want to perform on the pool during the 13th SA Games,” she added.

Singh, one of the 12 athletes under the IOC Scholarship programme for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, said the extra training in UK would help her for the SA Games. “I have got a personal trainer and I go to him twice a week. We can use the scholarship amount on that as it is costly. The training will definitely help me and my first target is SA Games.

Olympics will come after that,” she said. Singh, who will return to UK this week, will be undergoing nine sessions of swimming training and five gym sessions in a week.

“It’s a new club and close to my residence. We have started a new programme and we are focusing on SA Games which is my primary target,” she said.

Her mother, Garima Rana said they always wanted to make the nation proud through Gaurika’s achievements. “We are proud of her achievements and looking forward to hit the gold in SA Games. We have tried our level best to create the most favourable environment for her to excel and we will keep doing that,” said Rana.