Kohei uchimura

All Age Group National Gymnastics: After being crowned junior national champion in the men's artistic gymnastics at the All Age Group National Gymnastics Championships 2024-25 in Surat recently, the 17-year-old Mann Kothari is aiming to replicate the success in the senior category before fulfilling his dream of representing India in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

Talking about his competition in the junior nationals, Kothari highlighted the progress of the sport in recent years with the introduction of foreign coaches by state teams and the upgradation of infrastructure in the country.

"The competition itself was tough. Even though gymnastics is still not a very big sport in India. But it is really developing, the level is rising very quickly because there are a lot of investments in gymnastics that is happening. Like Odisha and UP have an international coach who comes from outside to coach, it's been a couple of years. So, they've had international coaches and some cities are building new infrastructure for gymnastics. Even I went to the UK for training for six months last year," Kothari told IANS during a virtual interaction.