The sun was beating down on the east stands of the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. The temperature was around 40°C and the wind was non-existent. It was a typical May Chennai day. The stadium had turned into a furnace. Even as a lot of people inside the stadium had sought the refuge of a shade, there were a few people who had preferred the sun. The long jump pit was just below the stands where the long jumpers were going through their chores.
One man never left the side of the long jump lane—pacing between the start and the landing pit—animatedly mouthing suggestions to his ward, who was sipping water to avoid dehydration.
S Murali has been by Sreeshankar’s side ever since he started jumping as a child in Palakkad. On Wednesday, when Sreeshankar won silver, his second at the Commonwealth Games, the first long jumper to achieve the feat, his father was beside him guiding him every step of the way. The conditions were wet and the temperature had dipped to 10 degrees in the evening. Sreeshankar usually suffers in cold climes. Yet his jump of 8.09m was good enough for silver behind Tajay Gayle, the 2019 world champion.
“It rained and the temperature dipped to 14 degrees and later to 10,” Murali told this daily from Glasgow. “Keeping warm was not easy, but we were expecting a bigger jump.” Sreeshankar too felt their target was bigger. As for the conditions he said to win medals one has to adjust with the conditions.
During numerous conversations with the athlete and the father, one thing seemed clear: Sreeshankar is ‘Made in Palakkad’. In days of over-reliance on foreign coaches, Sreeshankar is a product of this country. If his father takes care of his training, his mother takes care of his diet and his sister also chips in if the need arises.
In short, the whole family made Sreeshankar the athlete. “I like home-cooked food and my diet is usually Kerala food cooked at home,” Sreeshankar had told this daily.
The house he lives in has sports written all over it. The five Olympic rings adorn a mirror in his room. There are Olympic and Asian Games motifs in the corridors and living rooms. A gym was built for him during Covid so that he doesn’t need to step out. A pit was dug. It was built in 1998 and Sreeshankar was born in 1999.
Considered one of the most talented long jumpers in the country, the former national record holder won the Commonwealth Games silver—first by an Indian long jumper—at the quadrennial event in Birmingham four years ago. He has had one of the biggest jumps outside India when he won silver at the Asian Athletics Championships in Bangkok and qualified for the Paris Olympics.
As his career started to prosper, destiny had other ideas. By April 2024, he had realised he had jumper’s knee (patellar tendon). He hadn’t had a single competitive jump since the Hangzhou Asian Games and with just months to go for the Olympics in Paris, his world shattered around him. If not for the support of his family, he would have plunged into depression.
There were sleepless nights and Sreeshankar endured this pain, like he always does, in silence. He did not know whether he would be back on track. The ordeal lasted for 650 days until he entered his first competition—Indian Open athletics—in July last year. His first jump was over 8m and that was a big relief for Sreeshankar and his father.
Getting back into form after injury is the toughest because somewhere in the back of the mind, there is always the impending threat of the injury. “What I went through after the injury, I never thought I would be back on track and win this medal,” he said even after winning the silver and thanked his father and his support staff for helping him recover.
In January last year, he moved to the National Centre of Excellence in Thiruvananthapuram. “It helped us a lot during the recovery process,” Murali said. Now the family mostly lives in Thiruvananthapuram.
The biggest irony is that despite guiding his son to two Commonwealth and one Asian Games medals, Murali has never got any special award reserved for coaches. He has been overlooked for the Dronacharya Award as well. But Murali never complains. Training is his passion and as long as Sreeshankar wins medals, he believes, recognition will come.