Coimbatore-based Aahil Mubarak (6) is at his best after strapping on his roller skates and speeding on the rink with the wind in his face. At the Asian Roller Sports Open Championship staged in Pattaya, Thailand between May 11-17, young Aahil bested competitors from Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand to bag two golds in the 500 m and 3,000 m speed skating events in the Under-6 category.

This tiny speedster followed up his international victory with a silver (500 m) at the All India Real Gold Roller Skating Championship 2017 held on August 19-20, in Dharuhera (Haryana); two golds at the Inter-School State Skating Championship in Namakkal (Tamil Nadu) on October 7, and two golds at the Kovai Sahodaya Inter-School Skating Tournament held in Coimbatore on October 10.

The elder son of A. Mubarak, a businessman, and homemaker Haseena, Aahil is a class I student of the city’s top-ranked Yuvabharathi Public School whose passion for the sport was ignited by the sight of children wheeling around the 200 m rink in the city’s VO Chidambaranar (VOC) Park and Zoological Garden, which he frequented with his parents. “Aahil was a hyperactive child and we believed he would succeed in an individual sport. Since he was already keen on skating, we enrolled him at the VOC Park skating rink under coach D. Kanishka when he was three,” says Haseena, who closely monitors his training, fitness and diet schedules. When Aahil started showing some progress, his parents shifted him for professional training at Kanishka’s Skating and Fitness Academy (KSFA) under coach R.A. Dharani Kumar. 

Within a year of training for competitive skating, Aahil is creating waves in the national and international circuits. At his first Summer Intraclub Skating Championship organised by KSFA in May 2016, Aahil won two gold medals followed by another gold (500 m) and silver (1,000 m) at the Open District Speed Skating Competition in July, 2016 and a gold (1,000 m) and silver (500 m) at the 25th Tamil Nadu State Roller Skating Championship last November. To date, Aahil’s medals tally is an impressive 11 gold and five silver. 

An all-rounder who excels in athletics, academics and dance, this little champ is intent on joining the Indian Army when he grows up, which is a long time off. For now, he has set his sights on winning the world championships and is training intensively to achieve his goal.

Go get ’em kid!

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)