For India’s fastest swimming couple, a freestyle love story and a podium finish

Virdhawal, a former Asian Games bronze medallist, extended his dominance in Indian pools by winning two titles, the 50m butterfly and freestyle with a timing of 24.09 seconds and 22.82 seconds respectively.

“It’s unreal,” Rujuta, 27, sighs. “I mean, look where we were when we got married, both of us were not even swimming,” Virdhawal, 31, beams.

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Virdhawal Khade and Rujuta Khade at the pool of Western Mumbai’s Khar Gymkhana (Express Photo by Amit Chakravarty)

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Virdhawal Khade and Rujuta Khade at the pool of Western Mumbai’s Khar Gymkhana (Express Photo by Amit Chakravarty)

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Virdhawal Khade and Rujuta Khade at the pool of Western Mumbai’s Khar Gymkhana (Express Photo by Amit Chakravarty)

It’s been a couple of days since their feat. The duo stand next to the pool of Western Mumbai’s Khar Gymkhana for photos, conscious of more than a dozen gazing eyes.

It’s here that their story began eight years ago. Virdhawal was given an honorary membership of the Gymkhana, where Rujuta trained daily.

At first, they’d steal a glance or two and mutter the soft ‘hi-hellos’ when they walked past one another. “Then, he started training with us and we started talking,” Rujuta says. “Gradually, he offered me lifts and dropped me home after our workouts.”

Rujuta, introvert and shy; Virdhawal, unabashed and bold. She, a college girl; he, an Olympian and Asian Games medallist. “I wouldn’t ever message him first. And he’d, like, been to the Olympics, so that ‘male ego’ used to come,” Rujuta teases.

“When we started dating,” Rujuta continues, “I was in college so if I was in a lecture, I’d still message him but if the professor is looking at you, you have to keep your phone down. If I’d be two minutes late to reply, then…”

“…I’d block her for a couple of days,” Virdhawal sheepishly completes the sentence. “Looking back, I was very petty. That was a character flaw I had. But we have grown up together, matured together.”

A year later, in 2017, they tied the knot. And the beginning of the new union coincided with the couple easing ties with an old companion – the pool.

Rujuta says she started losing interest in swimming in 2014, then took a break for final exams in 2015, the year when her coach passed away. “So I gave up just like that,” she says.

For Virdhawal, the bureaucracy was the stumbling block. He’d been posted as a tehsildar in rural Maharashtra, and, for a long period, lived a life in obscurity.

After missing the Rio Olympics in 2016, he decided to return for the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta and shifted his base to Bangalore, where Rujuta joined him. While Virdhawal got back into the punishing grind of a professional athlete, Rujuta accompanied him to the gym and pool merely to shed some extra kilos.

“At that time, I was almost 20kg heavier than what I used to be when I was swimming and wasn’t feeling good about it. So, I started going to the gym. He suggested I get into the pool to burn extra calories, which I did,” Rujuta says.

Unwittingly, she made a comeback to the pool. A 200m swimmer originally, Rujuta tagged along with Virdhawal’s short sprint workouts. “As I kept losing weight and got stronger in the gym, I started swimming faster. And before we both knew it, I was clocking time in training that was fast,” she says.

The drive to get an edge over their actual rivals in the pool was such for Virdhawal and Rujuta, even the training sessions became competitive sometimes. They’d often bicker and make the day ‘miserable’ for the other if one of them had a bad workout. The sweet nothings, they laugh, of two married, professional swimmers.

“But now, we try not to carry that baggage at home,” Virdhawal says

For Rujuta, that number was 26.61 seconds. Since she returned to the pool, switching from 200m to 50m, Rujuta had been consumed by Shikha Tandon’s national record set in 2003.

At the 2019 National Championships, she came agonisingly close. But then, the pandemic hit, the pools were the last sporting facility to reopen after the lockdown was lifted and just when the activities returned to normalcy, she suffered a potentially career-ending spine injury.

“I was diagnosed with scoliosis,” Rujuta says. “I was a complete mess. It was very hard for me but he was there to encourage me every day.”

“I have had so many setbacks in my career,” Virdhawal adds. “There’s always a silver lining.”

 

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He knows. After the 2020 Tokyo Olympics got postponed to 2021, Virdhawal stopped swimming ‘because of the uncertainty over whether the Games will happen. “I could not deal with that. It’s always been that if I am training, it has to be for something.”

But while one door closed, another opened. A year after the Olympics, China’s zero-Covid policy forced the organisers of the Hangzhou Asian Games to postpone it by one year, with the rescheduled event set to be held from September 23 to October 8.

That gave Virdhawal a ray of hope. “The postponement gave me more time to prepare and make a comeback.”

He also has unfinished business at Asiad. In Jakarta five years ago, Virdhawal missed the podium in 50m freestyle by 0.01 seconds. It might be a painful memory but Virdhawal has long moved on.

“The next day, I went shopping with Rujuta, who was with me in Jakarta,” he says. “I lost a medal but life went on.”

Perhaps, he’d have reacted differently earlier. But marriage and being with a partner from the same discipline has made him calmer, and wiser. The competitiveness, though, remains firmly intact.

“These have been the best years of my life. Even if I wasn’t swimming, I’d be okay. From Hyderabad nationals, I am happy and very proud of her. But next time, I’ll break two records and go one-up on her,” Virdhawal laughs.

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And they did celebrate their anniversary, belatedly so: A quiet dinner, indulging in a rare cheat meal, and the satisfaction of being India’s fastest swimming couple.