CHENNAI: In sports, the human body is essential for performance. Yet, often, it becomes central to athletic spectatorship, moving away from the initial purpose of serving the sport and the athlete. As much as audiences are an avenue for support and encouragement, they can also be the greatest critics of physical traits that have little bearing on how one can perform in their respective sport. For budding athletes, especially girls, this can get pretty daunting.
For even the Olympic athletes have not remained untouched by this massive epidemic of body shaming (online and offline). In the case of discus thrower and shot putter Krishna Jayasankar, such unwarranted scrutiny turned out to be one of the reasons she picked up the sport and strived hard at it.
And she is not too far from making a mark as the 18-year-old from Chennai gears up for a training stint in Kingston, Jamaica, to qualify for the U-20 World Athletics Championship scheduled for next August in Nairobi, Kenya. The daughter of former India basketball players Jayasankar Menon and Prasanna Jayasankar, Krishna tried her hand at multiple disciplines — like tennis, badminton, basketball and swimming — before falling for the heavy disc. And last year, she won the bronze at the junior nationals. “People say I have the gene of my father,” says Krishna who is five feet and nine inches tall .
“When I was in class 5, I was taller and more stout than the rest of my schoolmates. That’s when people started bodyshaming me. Yet, with my elder sister’s support during that phase, I took it in my stride. I then worked on strengthening my core and utilised my physique to improve my game.” Rising above the noise, her first tinge of success came in 2016 when she clinched the bronze in the U-19 shot put in CBSE nationals. The same year, she won the silver in the inter-district junior meet in the U-16 category.
In the next two years, she won three medals in the CBSE nationals — in both discus throw and shot put. It was during the 2019 junior nationals in Guntur that she met the Jamaican, Michael Vassell (a World Athletics Level 3 elite coach), under whom she will be training at Throwers ‘R’ US, a throws club based in Kingston, from early December subject to visa approval (she will be flying via the UK). With competitions still on hold in India, Krishna will also be able to get the muchneeded game time there, thanks to the events conducted by the official body.
“Qualification standards are 49m and 14.60m for discus throw and shot put, respectively, for the Worlds. Vassell has been my coach since 2019; during the lockdown, we worked on fine-tuning a few aspects of my game. Since the facilities opened in Chennai, I have been throwing 46.54m in practice under the guidance of coach R Raghu at Nehru Park. To qualify for the Worlds, I need to participate in more events. That is why I chose to travel amid the pandemic,” added Krishna, who broke the junior south zone 2019 athletics championship U-18 girls discus throw record.
The flip side to training abroad is the financial burden that comes with it. Lack of sponsors means her parents have had to put up around `10 lakh for the works. Yet, with some good performance, this training will help Krishna secure the next target of getting scholarships in the USA. “I’m looking at food science and entrepreneurship as options for my undergraduate. I also believe qualifying for the Worlds will send a message that having a broad appearance does not signify the inability to compete,” added Krishna.