Ahead of the game
That unwavering hand. This strong shoulder. The penalty that was converted. The serve that went through like a rocket. The bullet that went truer than true. The hunger for victory, for gold, the podium.
A great Indian sports resurgence is on, and medals and international victories, both individual and team, are coming home regularly of late even though it’s a trickle yet. Behind all that glitters, however, is hard work and the nurturing of talent across the nation.
And smart work. Behind the scenes, there are makers of champions, trained through their own lifetimes, unseen heroes who are beginning to change the same old, same old of India’s sporting prowess. They study the art of sporting war—mind, body and soul—honing it with exposure, experiment and experience. They apply it to the best and the hungriest. More glitter, more glory.
From ever-evolving physiotherapy to old faithful strength and conditioning, and from holistic therapy to mindfulness and motivation, here are some of these gamechangers putting India in the field of champions and on track to victories.
There’s a tiny woman doing giant-killing. There’s a Mumbai man who’s changing and challenging traditional training precepts. There’s a vegetarian marathoner working on mind and body as one unit. There’s a YouTuber working on body dynamics.
All are successful. All want more.
And all are ahead of the game.
Champions Made Here
Deckline Leitao
Sport and Exercise Science specialist
Train smart, not hard
Prioritise staying uninjured
Spot talent early
His métier is clear: sourcing core beliefs to enhance body dynamics. Deckline Leitao’s life is as much about sports as it is about the philosophy of “training right”. From World Rank 42 golfer Avani Prashanth to World No. 9 badminton champion Lakshaya Sen, his student list is impressive.
A state-level silver in Taekwondo in 1991, Leitao now trains elite athletes. The Jeet Kune Do philosophy of Bruce Lee has inspired Leitao as he transformed sports science from tradition to practicality.
Schooled at St. Joseph’s in Dongri, Mumbai, then St. Xavier’s, a stint in merchant navy, the boy with Goan parents and Portuguese roots completed his bachelor’s in sport science from University of KZN in Durban, South Africa (2006) and a degree in sports science and culture at Roehampton University. Certified in strength and conditioning, performance enhancement, corrective exercise, and a slew of sports qualifications, Leitao’s understanding of the human body is intuitive, his lessons rock solid.
Today, his expertise at the RxDx Sports Centre and the Padukone-Dravid Centre for Sports Excellence in Bengaluru, fill his days. “It gave me a different outlook, of how sport affects culture, how bodies adapt to cultures, and about women in sport,” says Leitao.
He met and fell in love with his Japanese wife Kyoko in London, and went on to embrace Japanese philosophies. “Dating and marrying a Japanese taught me to keep drama outside and efficiency inside my life,” he laughs.
After initially working with tennis icon Prakash Padukone, elite athletes, and Olympians, coaching Avani Prashanth on hitting far could well be the core of his teaching, yet it is interspersed with recovery, rest and right training.
His tryst with Bengaluru began in 2010, when he lived with his grandparents. During Covid he coached online across India, the US, Dubai and Australia. “I believe that the biggest mistake Indians make is to blindly copy training programmes suited for the body structures of Europeans, Asians and Africans,” he says.
Be it badminton star Ashwini Ponnappa, swimmers Harinath and Mana Patel (last Olympics), boxer Mary Kom, shot-putter Inderjeet Singh, UK Formula 3 racer Akhil Rabindra, gymnast Deepika Kumari, table tennis champ Archana Kamath, he believes in making sports practical, not ‘hyper science’. “It is not rocket science with numerous tests, metrics, recordings, etc. It is important to know the biomechanics, physiology and exercise science behind throwing a punch, yet it’s more important to know how to throw
a punch when it matters,” he says. “Gadgets advanced us, yet the human body is the same. Wearing a smartwatch will not make you fitter and stronger, exercising will.”
His mantra? “Do no harm to athletes. Injuries can change destinies in sports. The priority is to stay uninjured, and then you have the option of going to play.” The Japanese philosophy of Zanshin guides Leitao, “It is about having situational awareness. To quickly anticipate, analyse, adapt and apply solutions in real time, like sport preparation,” he adds.
As a stakeholder of Indian sports, he calls out partial or abusive coaching (which has been the norm) and helicopter parenting, “It can have a negative impact on a child’s mental health for a lifetime.” A straight shooter, he tells his elite athletes to keep stardom at home, “It is like working with a growing lion cub. You must let them know who’s the boss.” Leitao has been instrumental in creating an online strength-and-conditioning course (S&C) specifically aimed at the Indian and South Asian population for IIT Madras’ NPTEL (National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning) platform to help parents, coaches and students make fewer mistakes, and learn how to save their bodies for play, and not for rehabilitation or surgery.
In India, sports potential is untapped. “We don’t have anybody in the football leagues. Apart from Rohan Bopanna, in doubles and a few in singles tennis, there are not many Indian sportspersons doing well internationally. While our genetics and epigenetics are more mentally inclined, we have outliers. What is not happening is protection of talent as the philosophy in life to succeed here is hard work.”
His role as an S&C coach is to ensure the body is safe. “Train smart, not hard. Recovery is not focused on. You want a fresh, light and strong athlete,” he says.
Winning Hearts and Minds
Shayamal Vallabhjee
Sports psychologist
Focus on the potential of mental training
Deal with the impact of stress on performance
Senior leaders, coaches and
team ambassadors are key
It’s strange to envision the psychologist of the Indian men’s football team as someone deeply immersed in the tabla. For the Durban boy who has played the tabla for 15 years, it’s all there. “If my life didn’t move into sports, I would have been an entertainer in the music industry,” Shayamal Vallabhjee says.
And thank heavens it did. Growing up in a conservative Indian community, Vallabhjee’s upbringing in Tongaat, South Africa, was a cornucopia of strong values amid socio-economic and racial diversity as the pall of apartheid enveloped all. Sports was of prime importance. Yet, his biggest contribution came when he integrated technology into sports. “With the Dolphins Cricket Team in Kingsmead, I was first to integrate real-time heart rate monitoring in matches, to predict fatigue. The team with Jonty Rhodes, Shaun Pollock, Andrew Hudson and others won five tournaments in four years,” recalls Vallabhjee.
As a young boy who experienced firsthand the turmoil of apartheid, he felt the need to look at life in terms of holistic foundation and spirituality-based action. In a country deeply segregated by apartheid, this young lad found that “sport, which should have been unifying was used to isolate. This realisation has had such a profound impact that I have dedicated my life to creating systems that empower athletes to unlock their fullest potential”.
At KwaZulu-Natal (BSc sport science), then University of Hertfordshire (MS Psychology) and Adler (MA in Industrial and Organisational Psychology), Vallabhjee tasked himself with understanding the mercurial relationship between the mind and body. That diversity in perspectives is his greatest asset. The esoteric nature of life intrigues him, especially since he spent four years learning with monks at the Sri Sri Radha Radhanath in Chatsworth, Durban. Straddling physiology and spirituality, he learnt discipline—waking up at 3 am, bed by 9 pm, diet cooked at the temple with two meals. “It has been one of the most transformative experiences in my life,” he says.
It’s this wisdom that makes him a stalwart—be it the SA and Indian cricket and football teams, and six years on the ATP Tour (tennis). He introduced meditation and mindfulness with the football team. “Senior players—Sandesh Jinghan, Sunil Chhetri and Gurpreet Singh—embraced this, helped me integrate it into routines. The results have been remarkable,” says Vallabhjee.
Veg, as he is fondly called in SA, as a vegetarian, entered the Indian sporting ecosystem in 2007 to help the Davis Cup team prepare for Beijing. “I noticed the quality of physical training was lacking and the quality of support staff at an international level was a gaping hole.” The solution came through HEAL, his startup to help doctors and physios understand the methodology of working with elite athletes. “Our coaches are still behind the eight ball on the integration of technology on performance—this is always going to be a knife’s edge.”
With football coach Igor Stimac, Vallabhjee is in the midst of a passion project: building a groundbreaking research and data set to understand the relationship between psychometrics and personality in coping with stress at elite levels. “The lack of support for mental work from administrators and coaches, funding to run research tests and collect widespread data sets and importance given to the impact of mental work in athletes’ performances needs to be addressed,” Vallabhjee says.
He is also a part of the teaching team at Stanford Business School’s LEAD Program. Instrumental in helping Bengaluru FC win the I-League in its inaugural year, he is a leadership coach, with over 1,000 workshops to his credit. On the road 40 weeks a year, he dabbles in golf, and is an avid marathoner. “Winning Grand Slams with Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza, working alone with Sachin Tendulkar at the 2003 World Cup, training with the runners in Iten, Kenya, and sitting in the room with Abhinav Bindra after he won the first Olympic gold medal for India—we didn’t work together but we were all living together in the Olympic village. These and a million tiny memories nudge me forward,” he says.
Best Foot Forward
Vinay Menon
Former Chelsea FC and Belgium Football Team wellness coach
ARFA: Awareness, recovery, focus, achievement
Hypnosis, psychology, sleep therapy to reboot individuals
Me-time and mental recovery to achieve balance
The first wellness coach of the football World Cup doesn’t wear his moniker lightly. Ernakulam-born Vinay Menon has been working tirelessly behind the scenes in football, at the highest echelon—first as wellness coach with the Chelsea Football Club, and later with the Belgium national team at the World Cup 2022. Now, he has his sights set on a wellness universe in Dubai to enhance mindful sports and fitness.
Menon wants to lend his expertise to Indian football with his “calm mantra” for elite footballers. A mix of yoga, fitness and physiotherapy, he brings a versatile blend of positive psychology and wellness put together over his 15 years in the field. It all began when he started working as a personal trainer for former Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich. The Russian oligarch, it was reported, felt Menon’s philosophy would fit in the high-energy game. Soon, he was named wellness coach of Chelsea FC, and then the Belgian national football team came calling.
It’s been a circuitous journey from the village of Cherai in Ernakulam, Kerala, to Ananda in the Himalayas to Jumeirah in Dubai, and then on to London, Belgium and now back in Dubai. Menon’s wish is to help Indians as a European insider of football.
With the Belgians, he helped them “create a mental equilibrium, before, after and during a match. Everything is about preparation,” says the wellness expert with an MPhil in physical education from Pondicherry University. Then it was yoga at the Kaivalyadhama Yoga Institute, Delhi, further strengthened by his great-grandfather and grandfather’s bhakti and adhyatma yoga philosophy.
What is wellness in elite sport? He laughs, “My mantra is ARFA (awareness, recovery, focus, achievement) to help gain a profound knowledge of self, with forays into hypnosis, psychology, sleep therapy, focused on prevention and recovery of the mind to reboot individual potentials.”
Menon helps “bring brain waves to drop to low theta and delta, to manage energy levels for performance. “Different brain wave patterns play a role in regulating mind functions—recovery, relaxation, creativity, focus and cognitive processing. In a holistic approach, the recovery of the mind involves nurturing the interconnected aspects of an individual—physical, mental, emotional and spiritual—to achieve a state of balance, harmony, and wellbeing.”
Working at Chelsea during former gaffer Jose Mourinho’s tenure, conversing with Ivory Coast footballer Didier Drogba, helping Eden Hazard during the Cup, he recalls, “I found an empty space to fill with wellness, I fit in,” he grins.
A state gold medalist in Judo, Menon says, “In sports as in life, recovery is key, me-time is crucial to analyse oneself and reflect,” he says. He wants to help fast-track India’s entry into the World Cup. “Allow Overseas Citizens of India (OCI cardholders) to participate in selection trials like other countries. I know many talented players exposed to international competitions whose performance is up to the level we expect. This will help us navigate and position ourselves better for World Cup qualifications,” he says.
To see FIFA-standard grassroots-level football academies develop the sport, enhance athleticism and wellness in India, he adds, “Transforming professional sports into recreational sports for
a healthy nation is important,” he adds. Currently, Menon has taken a break from his full-time professional football role to explore preventive care by merging the power of sports and wellness to enhance longevity and happiness levels. “It is an ongoing journey. I met Dr Shamsheer Vayalil, the founder and chairman of Burjeel Holdings, a healthcare visionary striving to transform sick care-based health offerings into holistic healthcare. We want to transform healthcare into a wellness-focused setup.”
Menon often catches up with his international footie friends, “I am still in contact with top players whenever they need assistance. Wellness is quite significant in the new era of sports,” he says. Menon incidentally has a book of his life story, From Cherai to Chelsea, released in August 2022, written by his wife Prof Dr Flomny Menon, who he met in Ananda; she now teaches leadership in the UK. “I am also keenly exploring how to be a supporting arm in developing India’s efforts to register the country on the global sporting map,” he says.
Science of the Times
Neville Wadia
Exercise Science professional
Make sports affordable
Go 360 degrees on training and recuperation
Change the culture of sports in India
Lean and mean Farhan Akhtar in Bhaag Milkha Bhaag was not just a movie thing; it was made possible because sports science was indelibly entrenched in the film. And Mumbai-based Neville Wadia was right behind it all. “I was one of three trainers to work on the film. I trained Farhan in a high-altitude chamber,” says Wadia, the founder of performance centre Soleus.
A serious knee injury at a time when Wadia was playing cricket, with state-level distinction in football already under his belt, saw his sports life come to a standstill. This was a turning point that not just galvanised him into exercise science, but also made him think of a new sports philosophy—of staying long and uninjured. During his search for the right diagnosis and rehabilitation, Wadia realised that sports was not being approached with a scientific mindset. This ignited his interest in the field of sports medicine and injury rehabilitation.
An expert in remedial exercise science and holistic wellness, backed by an MBA in entrepreneurship from Australia, Wadia’s interest in physiotherapy and exercise science deepened. It brought him face to face with the stark contrast between sports and fitness infrastructure in India and Australia, also sparking existentialist questions about his purpose in life. A degree in exercise science followed in Australia in 2010.
Even when he had a corporate job at Deloitte, Wadia was sure he wanted to enhance sports and shy away from his family’s 120-year-old timber merchant business. “It was not seen as a career back then, but there was no way I was going to do a 9-to-5 desk job. I wanted to work with people who wanted to get healthier, fitter,” he says. He has worked closely with the then-Bangladesh cricket team physio, the Indian cricket team physio, as well as with the Rajasthan Royals for almost 15 years now. Wadia set up Soleus in January 2018 as a multidisciplinary health and fitness studio, named after the smaller calf muscle in the body.
He now hopes to see other sports shine like cricket. “It’s not important. If it was, the government would put money into it. We have the greatest cricket league in the world. It is one of the most incredible competitions India owns and has benefited cricket at the absolute grassroots level, and cascaded and filtered all the way down. Yet, for the first 10 years, every single coach, physiotherapist, strength-and-conditioning coach was non-Indian, and even support staff. We are so far behind not only in personnel, expertise and skill. There is no framework or licenses for physios, coaches, etc. nor any benchmark qualification. That has to change.”
India needs investment in sport irrespective of results. “Why is Neeraj Chopra training in Germany even though JSW has a brilliant facility in Bellary?” The young father is now going to the grassroots; at his children’s school the idea is to add physical education and sport as a compulsory curriculum, and introduce an up-to-date athlete development programme, stressing that a child up to the age of 13 should be exposed to multiple sports, gymnastics and movements. It is the same vigour that Wadia brings to his training—individualistic, specific and holistic.
He believes sports should be affordable, too: “Why don’t we have any swimmers? Because there are no public swimming pools!” Understanding the athlete, the sport, the movement involved—the bio-mechanics—is what he focuses on. He has trained over 500 people, with personal sessions at Rs 3,500-10,000 an hour. “The culture of sports in India is something that
I want to try and change; the mindset of what it means to be healthy and fit is completely skewed. Strength is everything, resistance training should start early,” says the exercise scientist who has worked briefly with Rohit Sharma, Robin Uthappa, Suryakumar Yadav and Sean Tate.
Seed of Change
Poornima Raman Ngomdir
Physio at Olympic Gold Quest
Empathy and scientific strategy
Synchronicity and role-building
Acceptance of sports science at all levels
If there’s anything Poornima Raman Ngomdir is absolutely sure of, it’s that sports has kept her on an even keel. Today, as sports physiotherapist at the Olympic Gold Quest (OGQ), she has been leading athletes into the science of sport for the past 14 years. “I have been into mostly Olympic sports for the past 11 years. I work with CSR funding to sponsor athletes in support, training, coaching, equipment, etc.,” says Ngomdir, Head of Medical Science at OGQ.
The Delhi-born girl, brought up in Ahmedabad and Delhi, comes from a family of academics. “Nobody in our family played sports, but we loved cricket, mostly analysis and technicalities. Even my 80-year-old grandmother used to sit and watch reruns of Test matches,” says Ngomdir who began playing cricket in Class X, albeit recreationally.
“I always wanted to be associated with sports,” she says. When her uncle, a doctor, suggested physiotherapy as a career after seeing her passion for sports, she decided to jump right in, even though she was eyeing medicine. From Bachelor of Physiotherapy at the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, Bengaluru, then musculoskeletal and sports science in 2009 at Dr MV Shetty College of Physiotherapy in Mangaluru, Ngomdir found a niche in a male bastion, and she persevered.
“People would wonder how I’ll manage. I look tiny, but still decided to pursue it at one of the top colleges in physiotherapy,” she recalls. From that first job—she was sports physio with the CRPF shooting team at the 2010 Commonwealth Games—Ngomdir slowly started working on ground with young athletes in tennis. It was a time when the concept of athlete and trainer was non-existent. Determined to change cliches, she dug into learning on the job. “I used to learn tennis from the coaches. I told them, I don’t need a salary, just want to learn the techniques of tennis, and I will take care of injuries,” she smiles.
It is a well-oiled and well-made machine that she helms. Today, collaborating with Olympians, medal winners and the best in sports has given her a deeper understanding. As assistant programme director at School of Sports Studies at TransStadia University, Ahmedabad, and earlier as Head of Sports Sciences with Olympic Gold Quest, she leads a robust team in India’s preparation for the Olympics and Paralympics.
Training at the gym, poring over strength-and-conditioning research with athletes from 5 am to 11 pm was “a lot of self-learning”, she says. That was when she met her mentor, who would later become her husband, Dr Kenjom Ngomdir, at a sports conference (he is chief medical officer at CRPF) and “bonded over elite sport”. Grateful for his guidance when she was a fledgling, she believes having a mentor is important. “When you don’t know where to start, what direction to take, having a guide is crucial. For instance, Dr Nikhil Latey was the first to introduce me to the science of sport,” she says.
Ngomdir’s eyes light up when she remembers the highs.
“I contributed as a sports science expert with Shweta Chaudhary, a top shooter who won a bronze medal in Asian Games 2014 in Incheon after a long struggle with form and back pain. The moment she won, I received a call from her husband with just two words—Thank You. That motivates me,” she adds. On working with Heena Sidhu, a gold medal-winning pistol shooter, Ngomdir says, “She came and put the medal around me and a colleague as we had worked closely with her during a tough injury phase,” she recalls.
As far as the elephant in the room—sports in India—is concerned, Ngomdir feels that the nation has still not been able to inculcate sports as a part of lifestyle, and the “acceptance” of sports science is not universal. “Having a sports science team is not enough, accepting the expertise to embed it into training is still lacking. Acceptance has to come from grassroots to elite levels. If everyone understands each one’s role in building a champion, and works in synchronisation, we have no dearth of talented or hard-working athletes,” she says.