‪#‎MeetBITSiansInSports‬
Our Fifth Interviewee for “Meet the BITSians in Sports” series is Vivek Gupta (2005A3PS169P).

Vivek is Master of many trades and has been involved in Cricket, Badminton, Running, Bike Racing and Mountaineering.
After graduating from BITS-Pilani, Vivek moved to the US to pursue Masters degree from Purdue University in Electrical and Computer Engineering. From there, he started at NVIDIA Santa Clara as Hardware ASIC Engineer and have been working there ever since.

Name: Vivek Gupta
BITS ID: 2005A3PS169P

Sports/activities involved in and how did you get into playing these sports?
Since childhood, I have always been passionate about cricket, with special soft-corner for bowling. After joining Purdue University, I took cricket more seriously and started playing for the University team. Apart from local tournaments, I got involved in mid-west league matches as part of the Purdue team. I continued my passion for cricket after moving to California; further joined the cricket bay league and we even won the league trophy in 2012.
One day, I decided to try Badminton and joined an academy to play regularly with friends. Unfortunately, due to incorrect actions and over-usage, I suffered from labrum tear in my shoulder. Owing to this, I had to refrain from any over-head sports (which included both cricket and badminton). It took me roughly ten months to recover back to normal mode. But, these ten months proved a boon to my runner-side as I started running and hiking. Starting with 10Ks, I slowly ramped up to half-marathons and eventually completed Half dome (Yosemite) hike.
On recovering from the shoulder injury, I joined nVIdia badminton team; the Captain agreed to coach me. He helped me to learn the correct action and inherit the right foot work. I went on to represent the Nvidia team at the Bay Area Corporate-Tournament and have been constantly competing in open tournaments.
I am equally passionate about motorcycle racing and have tried the race tracks in and around here. Last month, I backpacked to Mount Whitney summit (the highest in mainland USA at 14500 ft) and hope to scale up the Everest one day.

What do you like the most about these sports?
I love playing sports. My favourite pastime is playing some kind of sports : ranging from cricket to badminton, basketball, volleyball and football with my friends. The good thing about playing is the requirement of excellent hand-leg-eye coordination and constant boost of stamina. It is the best stress buster and shortest route to fun-filled fitness workout.

How does these activities help you stay healthy?
Any sport that I play, does involve a full-body workout. And especially when you take a sport to a competitive level, you cannot afford to lose a game because of lack of fitness or health reasons. This is a big factor to constantly challenge oneself to push higher.

Do you take special care of your diet?
This is something I feel I lose out on, often. I have high metabolism and lean muscles – so have never really cared much about special diet. However, I have lately come to realize that special diet is extremely necessary for performance beyond a certain limit.  Along with added concern on my mineral/vitamin requirements. I have been trying to workout in the gym to gain muscular weight and to hone my stamina further. Though, I haven’t been too successful on giving up my favorite samosas and french-fries, but I have slowly increase my intake of protein-rich healthy diets.

How can someone absolutely new to your sports start playing it?(What could be a good start to get into these sports)
According to me, acclimatizing to a new sports depends on the person’s motivation and the choice of  the sport. Partially the reason I was able to quickly pick up badminton was because I was a bowler in cricket because of which I had a good control on over-arm actions.
For someone, who is totally new to badminton, one should simply start playing at will, initially and slowly try to realize the reason for every point lost in a game. With practice, the reasons for faulty shots will converge and this would be a good point to start coaching. Playing with experts will offer a different perspective and broaden the understanding of the sport. One can also start observing recorded games of international players and employ this knowledge in doing relative comparison with their strategies and movements.

What’s your next goal for your game(s)?
Stretching my Badminton capabilities is my short term goal. I would love to be a ‘B’ group player in the tournaments and compete with national/international level players in Group ‘A’. Another short-term goal is to pursue my motorcycle racing more intently. I would love to atleast do a knee drag and get into intermediate riders zone.
My long term goals are half Iron Man and highest-peaks hiking.

Any advice to the BITSian community on how to stay healthy and fit?
I would advise everyone to pursue one sport and take it to a competitive level. Competition is a motivation that pushes your limits and forces you to start thinking about your overall health and diet. At the same time, do not forget to enjoy the sport while playing it competitively. Any sport should be played with a good sense of sportsmanship and no person should be looked down upon for any reason in a sport.

Interviewed by: Robin Garg (2007A3PS161P)