Mangalore-origin Champion Skater Wins Gold in Nationals

Daijiworld Media Network

Chennai/Mangalore, Mar 7: Six years into artistic roller skating, 13-year-old I K Pranamya Rao is already a three-time gold medal winner at the national level, with the recent achievement of bagging gold medal at the 49th National Artistic Roller Skating Championship pair dance category teaming with Aswin Abraham.

The duo also won bronze for Artistic Skating (Pair) and Individual Free Dance. Thus, they together brought home 6 out of the total 14 medals won by team Tamil Nadu.

Having won two of the three gold medals for the state, they are now eligible for selection for the coming Asian and World Skating Championship.
 

Mangalore Connection
 
Interestingly, Pranamya, a std VIII student of Bhavan’s Rajaji Vidyashram, Chennai has her roots in Mangalore and also, it is here that she picked up her roller skating skills at the age ten. She was trained under Arvind Chinchalkar in basketball rink at Hat Hill in Mangalore. Growing up watching her brother, I K Siddhanth Rao, a former national-level speed skater himself, she showed interest in skating when she came to visit her maternal grandparents H Kumaraswamy and Prema based in Kadri, Mangalore for two months in 2006. She is the daughter of I K Santhosh Rao and I K Lavanya Rao, Chennai.
 
Being trained in Bharatanatyam, Pranamya soon shifted her focus to artistic skating, which has brought her laurels. It is her training in classical art form which is mainly responsible for the grace with which she performs her skating and today that has got her maximum praise, says Lavanya, her mother. Aswin Abraham is a student of std IX at SBOA Junior College, Anna Nagar, and is a three-time national medallist. He is the son of Abraham Zachariah and Dr Annu Abraham from Chennai.
 

Achievements at the National Championship
 
At the 49th nationals held in Chandigarh, the pair proved their prowess and won, despite Aswin sustaining injury the day before the competition after he slipped on the ice. Pair posted a impressive win with Aswin managing the final contest with a cast on. The 8.1 points they got for the Rocker Foxtrot dance was the highest marks awarded in the meet. The three sections of pair dance included a compulsory flirtation waltz, rocker foxtrot and a choice of dance styles such as jazz, hip-hop and Bollywood.
 
Coach Aaron Saldanha, a National medallist in Artistic Skating says that the synchronized lift, first time by a junior pair, was appreciated by judges, who asked the duo to continue training hard keeping in mind the coming Asian championship. Choreographers Deepak and Muthukrishnan were also part of the team and trained the pair. Anup Kumar Yama, bronze medalist in the last Asian Games too had worked with them.
 
They have won many medals in the earlier National Championships with Pranamya being the gold medal winner at the last year’s national championship pair category with a different partner. At the district and state level championships, while Pranamya has bagged 4 gold, 4 silver and 1 bronze, Aswin has secured 6 gold, 2 silver and 2 bronze medals.