The Sports Ministry’s Mission Olympic Cell (MOC) on Thursday, May 26, approved Indian swimmer Aryan Nehra’s proposal to continue his training at the Aqua National Sports Academy (ANSA) located in Dubai before the World Junior Championships.
The World Junior Swimming Championships is all set to be held in Lima, Peru, from August 30 to September 4 this year. Aryan has been preparing for the same in Dubai since the start of this month. The Ministry stated in a release that Aryan, aged 18, who hails from Ahmedabad Gujarat, has been given around Rs 8.7 lakhs for his training of 90 days that started earlier this month and will finish by the end of August 2022.
It further said the sanctioned funds will be covering the expenses of his air travel, boarding as well as lodging expenses, local transport cost, coaching fees and out-of-pocket allowance, among other expenses. Aryan has been a TOPS Development Group athlete since 2019 he specialises in the 1500m freestyle.
He has won five gold medals and has also set meet records in three events at the 2017 Malaysian age-group meet. Later, in 2019 he also got the ‘B’ mark for the world championship held in South Korea.
Aryan is the son of the Gujarat-cadre IAS officer Vijay Nehra. He has joined the renowned US college swimming team, the Florida Gators, of the University of Florida in July 2021.
Among the well-known alumni of the Gators are American swimmers Caelab Dressel who has won five medals at the 2022 Tokyo Olympics, as well as Kieran Smith, who is a bronze medalist in the 400 metres freestyle at the Tokyo meet. Aryan is now preparing for an international competition for which he needed to be prepared very well, which is why the Ministry approved him to practice in Dubai.