Dreaming of an Olympics medal for India in table tennis, says Sharath Kamal

New Delhi, Sep 13 Legendary table tennis player Sharath Kamal believes the sport’s trajectory is on a steady upward curve in the country, adding that he’s dreaming about a paddler from India winning a medal at the Olympics in the near future.

Earlier this year, Kamal, one of the most decorated Indian table tennis players in the country’s history, announced his retirement from the game. Kamal, who was a flag bearer for the Indian contingent at the 2024 Paris Olympics, also boasts of multiple medals in Commonwealth Games, Asian Games, and Asian Championships.

“The younger generation is really very good and a lot of improvement from them, and we just hope that it goes from strength to strength. So, Asian Games, last time we had a women's doubles pair who won the bronze medal there, and we were very close to beating China.”

“We were heading to one against them, and the Paris Olympic Games were phenomenal for Indian table tennis, where the women played the quarterfinals, the men played the last 16. So, we are going from strength to strength every year, and hopefully in LA and the years ahead, we're looking at more and more medals coming in, and the biggest one, the Olympic medal is something which I'm dreaming of for Indian table tennis,” said Kulkarni in a conversation with IANS on the sidelines of PlayCom 2025 summit on Saturday.

For Sharath, life after retirement has been a busy ride – setting up a high-performance sport opening this year and being the vice chairperson of the IOA Athletes Commission. “So, it's been six months since I retired from the sport, but I'm a lot more active on the admin side of it.”

“A lot of projects that are coming up, especially my favourite one, are the one with the high-performance centre with the state sports development authority of Tamil Nadu. We're setting and starting that up probably first (week) of October.”

“We'll have our first training and apart from that, the IOA athlete commission is also very active and we're looking at having, we're planning for an athlete forum like how it's done in the IOC, International Olympic Committee or the OCA, Olympic Council of Asia.”

“So, we're trying to get all the athletes together under one roof and make sure that we are able to educate and interact with them and make the voice of the athlete heard to the various stakeholders in the field of sport,” he elaborated.

Asked if more sportspersons should try to explore the sports administration side of things, Sharath replied in the affirmative. “That's a career transition, as many times we are lost and we don't know what to do post-playing days. So, most of them pick up coaching, and they just go into coaching.”

“For some of us, we could be good administrators, we could understand the way organisations work, the way the policies are made, or some of us could also understand how business works, how the commercial side of the sport works.”

“That I see, there’s a lot of improvement in Indian sport where the sportspersons are able to have a career transition and make sure that they are still connected with Indian sports, many times with their own sport also, and make sure that the country grows as a sporting nation,” he said.

This year has also seen India submit a formal bid to host the 2036 Olympic Games in Ahmedabad, and Sharath feels the roadmap for it is on the right path. “I think the government has put in the right structure for that, and we are all working towards that.”

“So, we make sure that there's a clear pathway for young athletes to go from the grassroots level to intermediate level to feeder level, then into the high performance level, and through this process, everybody gets to play sport.”

“They necessarily don't have to become champions, but the more people play the sport, you'll have a bigger pool to identify talent and then make sure that there are champions coming out from the larger pool,” he concluded.

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