by Sadia Tariq
I don’t want to be a doctor or an engineer. My dream is to represent and win gold for my country in Olympics.
I am Sadia Tariq. I live in Srinagar’s Bemina Housing Colony. I was born in Srinagar on June 30, 2006. I started my schooling at Presentation Convent Rajbagh Srinagar.
When I was in my third grade, our fitness teacher came to our class and announced the sports event in our school. I was the first one to register for the event. He gave me a form to fill out and asked to get parental approval. I remember my father asked me if I was interested, and that he will always support me. I was very happy and choose taekwondo as the game. From the very next day, we started training.
After training for a year, I participated in my first competition at the school level, organized by the Indian Army at District Bandipora, Kashmir. I won a Bronze medal. I started getting appreciation and encouragement from my coaches and school administration, which kept me going with much more enthusiasm. The same year I went to New Delhi to participate in the third open India taekwondo championship where I won the Bronze medal.
In 2017, I went for the trails of tenth national open trails, held at the Indoor stadium Srinagar, got selected and won a silver medal. It is where I came in contact with my Taekwondo Coach who supported me and made me participate in all events held in Kashmir and by the grace of Almighty Allah I won many medals.
I went to Pune, Maharashtra, to participate in the national sub juniors Taekwondo championship and won my first Gold medal.
In 2018, I won a bronze medal in Hyderabad for the international junior taekwondo championship. Then I went to Imphal, Nagaland for 64th National School Games. Many of my friends and relatives were not in favour of my going there as the event was far too away from home town. Even my father who has always encouraged me and has been very supportive and always managed to take time off his busy schedule to accompany me nearly everywhere was not happy with me going too far away for participating in the competition.
I went to participate in the competition. I insisted and told him that I am a player and I have to travel anywhere and everywhere for a championship and fortunately my father approved. But there my performance was not that good as I could not adapt to that places and food habits and participated nearly on an empty stomach as I could not eat anything for five days.
In the meantime, my elder sister Sehar Tariq who is a science student from the same institute decided to join me in the field of martial arts. She has also played at National level championships in Gujarat and state-level championships and won a few Gold medals.
Thereafter, our Kashmir Wushu CEO and chief coach of India, Kuldeep Handoo advised me to switch over from taekwondo to Wushu. I discussed with my coaches about the switch over, which was hard for me but I took it as a challenge and started training for Wushu and participated in the national level Wushu championship held at Kolkata and won a Bronze medal. Unfortunately after coming back from the competition I got food poisoning and had to stay at the hospital for seven days.
Meanwhile, Covid19 had engulfed the whole world, our coaches, Maqsood sir, Rameez sir, Irfan sir and Aijaz Sir counselled us and emphasized focusing on practice sessions while following SOP’s.
In March 2021, I won a Gold medal at the second junior national championship at Haryana. My sister also participated in the event.
I don’t want to be a doctor or an engineer. My dream is to represent and win gold for my country in Olympics.
Sports keep us away from mental agonies like anxiety, stress and depression. I want all the Kashmir parents to encourage their wards to take an active part in sports. Government must support and provide a platform for girls to showcase their talent.
Much of the talent goes waste as many players cannot participate because they can’t bear the expenses. My sister and me are lucky enough that our father was able to bear the expenses incurred for our tours.
My request to all the parents in the valley is to support their children, particularly the girls in all fields they happen to be good in and not to let their budding talents go a waste.
Last but not the least I would like to thank all, to whom I owe my success, for it would not have been possible for me to achieve the success without their care, prayers and encouragement, especially my mother who used to accompany me for my training periods at Jammu, where I had to go at least 30 times during last seven years.
Here I would like to mention the name of, my father’s friend and colleague, Ashwini Kumar and his wife whom I call my second mother. They both encouraged and supported me and took very good care of me as I always used to stay with them during my training stints and competitions at Jammu.
I remember my English teacher Bazila ma’am once told me that one day I will become a star. She said this because I used to draw stars at the back of my notebook. This made me so happy.
In February 2022, I was shortlisted for Moscow Wushu Stars Championship. There, the competition was from February 22 to 28, where I bagged a gold medal by defeating Kazakhstan, the Czech Republic and Russia. I thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi Sir, who lauded me for winning a gold medal in Moscow Wushu Stars Championship. People welcomed me everywhere. I was felicitated at Delhi Airport, Jammu Airport, Srinagar Airport and at Bhopal Airport. A felicitation ceremony was organized by my School principal for my great achievement, for bringing laurels to my school too.
(Ideas expressed in the write-up are personal)
