Kersari kusthi

Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex:  Hailing from a small village in the Satara district of Maharashtra, India women's hockey team midfielder Vaishnavi Vitthal Phalke is living her father's dream as she gets ready to represent the country in the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, starting next week.

Vaishnavi's father, Vitthal Phalke, is a farmer who was once a wrestler and participated in Kersari Kusthi, a regional wrestling competition in Maharashtra. His dream of winning the competition went unfulfilled, but his passion for sports lives on through his daughter.

“My father was a wrestler when he was young but he couldn’t make it to the big leagues so he invested in me and hoped I would play for the country. He sent me to Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex Balewadi, Pune in 2011 to pursue sports and after trying my hand at several games I decided to take up hockey,” she said recounting her first steps as a hockey player.