Meet 14-year-old history maker Dhinidhi Desinghu, the youngest member of India’s Paris Olympics 2024 contingent
Dhinidhi Desinghu was two years old when American swimming great Katie Ledecky, then just 15, became the youngest member of the American Olympic contingent at the 2012 London Games. 12 years later, Desinghu is following in the footsteps of her idol as the youngest member of the Indian contingent at the 2024 Paris Olympics aged 14.
The Indian swimming prodigy is also the second-youngest Indian Olympian ever after Aarti Saha competed in the women’s 200m breaststroke at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, aged 11.
Desinghu, competing in the women’s 200m freestyle event in Paris, is now sharing the Olympic stage with Ledecky, already a seven-time Olympic gold medalist. The teenager desperately hopes she gets to meet the swimmer she looks up to. Most importantly, she is quite eager to learn from observing how an athlete of Ledecky’s calibre goes about their business on the biggest stage of all.
“I just want to see how she performs in her events, just how she swims or races, and to learn from how she prepares for events and how she executes a race,” Desinghu told the Sports Gazette in an exclusive chat. “I do have a lot of questions (for Ledecky) but just to meet her would be such an honour because she is such an amazing athlete…Hopefully, I get to see her.”
Dhinidhi Desinghu in action at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Hailing from Bengaluru, Desinghu started swimming at the age of eight despite initially having reservations about getting into the water. But once she overcame that fear, she was unstoppable. Recognising her talent in the pool, her parents decided it was time to take the next step and they approached the Dolphin Aquatics training academy, run by Nihar Ameen, one of India’s most decorated swimming coaches and a Dronacharya awardee (India’s highest honour for sports coaches). There, she began training with academy coach Madhukumar BM under the keen tutelage of Ameen.
Desinghu swims with a straight-arm technique only, unlike most other Indian swimmers. Ameen explains that it is a difficult technique to master but ideal for Desinghu specifically. “Coach Madhukumar felt that instead of the traditional recovery of the arms, it would benefit her if she used a straight arm,” says Ameen. “She spent a lot of time trying to perfect that.”
Madhukumar further explains that the straight-arm technique might not be useful for everyone, but it has certainly helped Desinghu.
Desinghu quickly rose through the ranks. Over the past year, she has peaked at the right time in the build-up to the Olympics, setting a national record time of 2:04.24s en route to winning the 200m freestyle event at the 2023 Senior National Championships before then making history by becoming the youngest female swimmer to win seven gold medals at the National Games. Earlier this year, she won multiple events across 100m, 200m, and 400m freestyle in Singapore and Malaysia. The youngster’s consistency has propelled her to becoming India’s no. 1 ranked female swimmer, thus clinching the universality quota for Paris 2024. After none of the Indian swimmers managed the A or B qualification mark for the Paris Games, Desinghu and Srihari Nataraj (who will represent India in the men’s event) were granted universality quotas, which are given to athletes in select sports representing nations with traditionally small delegations.
“Out of all the women and girls in India, today she has the highest number of (FINA) points at the tender age of 14 and that’s why she gets to go (to the Olympics). She is the best we have,” a proud Ameen says. “She is extremely focused. She’s really got the blinders on, which is very good.
Ameen is confident that Desinghu will not feel overwhelmed by the occasion of the Olympics, having already experienced major events like the Asian Games last year and the World Aquatics Championships earlier this year. Madhukumar agrees, adding that those events also showed Desinghu the work needed to be done going forward to be a strong contender on the biggest stage.
“That gave her the confidence that she too could be alongside them and that she still has the time to get to that level,” says Madhukumar. “The world championship was about looking at big stars in swimming and the Asian Games was about getting the ‘games experience’.”
Having said that, the coaches keenly point out that establishing a set expectation from Desinghu in Paris will only be detrimental to her.“This word expectation is what causes stress and performance anxiety. So we focus on the process,” Ameen states. “There is no perfect athlete out there. Everyone has flaws, and the limitation of flaws makes you a better athlete.”
That does not mean Desinghu has no expectations from her maiden Olympics. Her goal is to bring out her best at the highest level of the sport and focus on savouring the moment, as any 14-year-old should be able to do.
“It’s really exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time,” Desinghu expresses. “To be the youngest Indian to go to Paris for the Olympics is mostly exciting, but it also comes with expectations I have to improve myself and learn a lot of new things. I don’t have a huge expectation in terms of my time and performance. I just want to see the best that I can do right now at the Olympics.”
After gaining from this experience, Desinghu is already eager for more. “I know that there’s still a long way to go and this isn’t going to be my last Olympics. So I’m very excited to see what I can do this year.”
Regardless of the result in Paris, she is already blazing a trail back home.
“Dhinidhi’s example will inspire others. I can already see it in some other very young swimmers who are nine or 10 years old, where even they’re now motivated to compete for future Olympics,” says Madhukumar.
