At the age of just eight, Bengal’s Aronyatesh Ganguly has made his nation proud by winning gold medal at the World Children’s Winners Games 2019.
Hailing from Serampore, a town lying 30 km away from Kolkata, Ganguly bagged the medal in table tennis at the event held in Moscow for childhood cancer survivors.
Participants in Moscow competed in six events — track, chess, football, table tennis, swimming and rifle shooting.
Ganguly was the only kid from Bengal among the 10 children from India who participated in the event. He competed in all the six disciplines.
At the age of five, Ganguly was diagnosed with leukaemia (blood cancer). In 2016, he had to be to be admitted to the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, where he underwent treatment for 11 months.
Following regular chemotherapies and medication, doctors declared him cancer-free in December 2018. But he needs regular follow-ups and treatment so that the disease does not recur.
It was during his long stay in TMH that volunteers and doctors discovered his passion for sports.
Making this event a big one was a long-time dream for Ganguly who had been practising for more than two months.
Post his recovery, he has been regularly practising swimming, chess and table tennis. He even attends shooting classes in the evenin at the Bully Eye Shooting Academy under the tutelage of acclaimed shooter Pankaj Podder. Ganguly out everyone in awe when he hit the bulls eye on his second day at training.
The World Children’s Winners Games is a yearly event organized by Podari Zhizn (Grant of Life) Foundation, founded by two Russian actors. It aims to rehabilitate children who fought a long battle with cancer.
SOURCE- THE BRIDGE
