Media Release
Puttur, Aug 11: Balavana swimming pool located at Parladka, Puttur has recieved the Austswim Bronze certification, thus becoming the second pool in India to get this recognition after Dolphin Aquatic Centre, Bengaluru.
Austswim based in Australia is considered as one of the best swim teaching organisations in the world. This pool has nine Austsswim certified instructors. International swimmer and coach Partha Varanashi is the lease owner of the pool. He happens to be the only Austswim presenter in India and has been successful in drawing the attention of swimmers of national and international repute towards the small town of Puttur.
About three years ago, the lives of competitive swimmers of Puttur changed with the arrival of internationally trained coach and swimmer Partha Varanashi. He took competitive swimming to great heights. With his abundant knowledge of aquatic sports, he carved a niche for Balavana as one of the best swim training centres in Dakshina Kannada. In just three years, 40 competitive swimmers have won 600 medals in various competitions out of which 13 are national medals.
Vaishnav Hegde and Manohar Prabhu, who were touted as dark horses, have emerged as the top swimmers of the district to win several national medals in the last 3 years. They recently won six medals at the Junior National Aquatic championship held at Pune. Vaishnav also brought fame to the pool when he got selected for the World School Games at Poland this April. Among other prominent swimmers at the pool is Anjana Rai who won four medals at the VTU open university competition. The senior batch are trained by Vasanth Kumar and Niroop G R. Sinchana Gowda and Aneesha Nayak, surfers from this pool have created history by winning gold and bronze medal at the surfing competition held at Mahabalipuram last week.
Describing various activities at the pool, Partha Varanashi said, "This pool has introduced swimming for school children since the last academic year. Balavana in coordination with several schools of Puttur has now made swimming as part of school curriculum." Around 400 underprivileged school children are taught swimming under the Princess Charlene of Monaco Foundation without charging a fee. In addition, the pool has also been declared as the centre for Rashtriya Life Saving Society.
The RLSS team headed by Niroop G R imparts training on sea swimming, first aid and life saving skills under the "Nippers" programme at Tannirbavi beach. The pool is known for excellent staff and a lot of importance is stressed on safety and hygiene. Swimmers of international repute including Indian Olympian Sandeep Sejawal, ex-Olympian Hakimuddin Habibulla and Ekalavya awardee Arjun J P have visited the pool and conducted workshops for students.
In this pool children as young as three years old and adults as old as 70 swim every week.