Kakoli Mukherjee By Express News Service HYDERABAD: After winning a gold medal at the Wako India Kickboxing Federation Championship in Pune last year, 19-year-old Mehdi Telegraphy now wants to participate in an international tournament. Apart from kickboxing, his other interests include arm wrestling and callisthenics. Mehdi is pursuing Electronics and Communication engineering from Methodist College in Abids, but his heart lies in sports. "I have been interested in sports from my childhood, and my father was an arm wrestler. However, it is my mother who has a lot of faith in me and I want to make her proud," he says. This budding sportstar wakes up at 4:30 am every day to practise. While he learns kickboxing at Iskimos Kickboxing Academy, he learns arm wrestling from his father’s friend, Hashim Reza. Mehdi, who has braved many injuries to come this far, talks about the time when he was participating in another national championship in Haryana and won a gold medal. He says: “I had a deep cut in my leg at that time. Even my coach had warned me not to go ahead as it was bleeding, but I wanted to make my mother proud. I do not believe in giving up.” Asked if kickboxing and arm wrestling create a buzz in Hyderabad, he says that a lot has to be done to make these sports more popular. “However, I have heard that the next national arm wrestling championship will be held here, and I hope it’s true.” Mehdi’s family, which hails from Iran, is supportive of his dreams but his father wants him to finish his studies first. He adds that he took up kickboxing at the age of 16 years and can do two-finger and three-finger handstands. Talking about taking part in competitions, he says: “The prohibitive costs of entering competitions have often been a hurdle for me. The costs go up if it is an international competition. Sometimes, my father’s friends help me with money." The writer can be contacted at kakoli_mukherjee@newindianexpress.com Twitter: @KakoliMukherje2

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