When excessive jumper Tejaswin Shankar was beginning athletics coaching on the college, his late father Harishankar was not pleased. His lawyer father wished Tejaswin to give attention to research as he didn’t see athletics, a sport stricken by age fraud and doping, as a viable profession possibility.
Tejaswin, who received India’s first excessive bounce medal on the just-concluded Commonwealth Games, needed to prepare through the college lunch break to make sure that his father doesn’t get misplaced.
“I could not go earlier than or after college as a result of my dad would learn about it. So I used to follow through the lunch break in order that nobody would know. This went on for a while after which the Delhi State assembly got here and I used to be in a position to slowly construct up. State medals after which interstate, 2014 college college students in Ranchi you have been speaking about. By then he had come to know and each time we had a struggle to speak concerning the sport. ‘Kya yahi karte rahete hai, padhai mein bhi dhyan do’ (what you might be doing, focus in your research) he would say,” says Tejaswin.
Congratulations!
Tejaswin Shankar opened the medal account of the Indian athletics staff with a bronze medal within the males’s excessive bounce occasion on the Birmingham Commonwealth Games 2022. National file holder Shankar completed third within the occasion by protecting a distance of two.22 metres. pic.twitter.com/wjTlmkJtTm— narayana chandra roy (@narayana80004259) 4 August 2022
At that point Tejaswin knew that his father would quickly put his foot down. He noticed that the ultimatum was coming lengthy earlier than it truly got here. Just earlier than the 2014 college nationals in Ranchi, his father instructed him he had to decide on between sports activities and research. Tejaswin’s father additionally instructed him about his battle with blood most cancers for the primary time.
“He told me that he was in the last stage of his life and that he was in January-February and passed away in March. I didn’t understand all this at the time. He only said that he didn’t have much time. He just asked me to choose between sports and studies,” says Tejaswin.
It was then that 15-year-old Tejaswin determined to jot down a letter to his father. Crying, he wrote that the Ranchi occasion can be his final competitors and that he would focus on his research after the occasion. He handed over the letter to his father and left for Ranchi not realizing that his harmless letter would shake his father.
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Tejaswin Shankar wins bronze to open males’s excessive bounce remaining at Commonwealth Games #teamindiaCounting of medals in monitor and subject@TejaswinShankar I
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“I didn’t perceive all of it at the moment. After handing over the letter to them, I went to the residents of Ranchi the place I received my first bronze medal after which a bronze medal within the Commonwealth Games.
The letters and medals have been a turning level in his profession. “That was my first national, and then he understood that sport was my passion and that was my calling. Then mom told me that when I left for the competition he talked about it and he was impressed by that letter After that, he wanted me to follow my dreams but then he didn’t have much time and we lost him after a month,” says Tejaswin.
But Tejaswin fondly remembers that bronze because it was a stepping stone to his exploits on the home circuit. He feels that the bronze medal on the Commonwealth Games could possibly be the start of a brand new starting on the worldwide stage.
“The journey began from there and now I’ve bronze once more. Every time I win a bronze medal, I really feel it’s the starting of one thing new. Then it was on the nationwide stage and since then I’ve executed rather well and perhaps this bronze is the start of one thing new.
With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
