Hyderabad: Army rowers did the nation proud by winning a historic gold and two bronze medals at the Asian Games on Friday but there’s a hidden Hyderabad hand too in the rowing glory.
Meet Colonel Kaushik Sen, a former national level rower and hockey player who works at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in Hyderabad. Being part of the Army’s Corps of Engineers, he has been involved in the Pokhran nuclear tests in 1998, the Kargil war in 1999 besides shaping the rowing team.
Col Sen represented the unified Andhra Pradesh rowing team at national championships in 1996 and was a member of the Nizam College hockey side that won multiple championships at the University level between 1993 and 1996 before joining the Army an year later.
Col Sen was on the four-man team that picked player combinations in the double and quadruple sculls events after evaluating various factors, at the Army Rowing Node in Pune which boasts of one of the only two artificial rowing channels in the world the other being in Germany. It is a controlled environment where rowers are put through the rigours of training.
Their efforts have borne fruit in Indonesia now.
