Daughter of a fisherman, Kaveri Dhimar wins 7 gold medals at Senior National Canoeing Championships

Canoeing is in no ways a popular sport in India. In fact such is the state of the sport that no Indian canoe has ever competed at the Olympics. The 2020 Tokyo Olympics was no different as the Indian canoe and kaykaying stars were forced to miss out on the Tokyo Olympics qualifiers due to the travel ban imposed on the country owing to the covid-19 pandemic.

While the country has never really produced a canoeing superstar, there is certainly one around the corner, it seems. A 17-year-old Kaveri Dhimar from the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

Born to a fisherman, Kaveri Dhimar is the fifth of the seven siblings. Needless to say the youngster faced a lot of financial troubles before finding her love for canoeing.

Kaveri used to help her father and four elder sisters ferry boats for fishing, with the sole motive of helping her family out of poverty. This was in 2016. Five years later, the youngster has emerged as one of India's finest talents canoeing.

She joined the Madhya Pradesh Water Sports Academy in 2017 and has not looked back since. In the recently concluded Senior National Canoeing Championships, Kaveri Dhimar bagged a total of 7 gold medals, taking her total tally of gold medals to 19 in national canoeing events.

But what is interesting is the fact that Dhimar was recruited to the Water Sports Academy not for her caneoing abilities, but for her swimming talent by the Khandwa district sports officer Joseph Baxla.