Long jumper Sreeshankar sustains knee injury, out of Olympics
CHENNAI: There is bad news in the athletics camp. Long-jumper M Sreeshankar is out of the Paris Olympics. The 25-year-old athlete had been training for the season at Palakkad and was expected to leave for Shanghai to compete in the Suzhou Diamond League, the first of many competitions he was planning to enter this season. His ultimate goal was the Paris Olympics, for which he had qualified last year.
The Asian Games silver-medallist had been training very hard for the Olympics and was feeling great as well. Until Tuesday morning, he and his father and coach, S Murali, were chalking out plans for the season. By evening, things had changed. After Suzhou DL, they were supposed to head to Doha DL and were thinking of a training stint abroad. And they were even targeting the senior inter-state nationals as well.
However, things have not gone according to plan. Everyone in his camp is distraught. Sreeshankar hurt his knee during regular training on Tuesday evening and has since been ruled out of the Paris Games. After numerous tests and discussions, experts have advised surgery on his knee. His dream has turned into a ‘nightmare’.
“Unfortunately, in what feels like a nightmare, but is a reality, my Paris Olympics dream is over. I suffered a knee injury during training on Tuesday, and after all the tests and consultations later, it's been decided that I would need surgery, ruling me out of the one single thing I've chased relentlessly all these years,” he wrote on social media.
"All my life, I had the courage to look at a setback in the eye, accept situations I can't change, and work hard at dictating the outcomes of those I can. Life writes strange scripts, and sometimes there is courage in accepting it and moving on. That's what I will do. My journey to a comeback began the minute I injured my knee. The road is going to be long, difficult and will take a lot out of me. The good thing is I've a lot to give. I will overcome this, because that's what Mamba Mentality is all about,” he said.
Even at the delayed Tokyo Olympics, he had a forgettable outing. It was later revealed that just before the Olympics, he had sustained an injury. He had consulted renowned sports medicine specialist Dinshaw Pardiwala. This time too, he is in touch with the same doctor and will undergo surgery as per specialists’ advice.
Sreeshankar had a mixed 2023 but ended with a silver at Hangzhou. After not being able to qualify for the final of the Athletics World Championships in Budapest, he was under pressure, especially after he managed two big jumps coming into the event. One was during the senior inter-state nationals in Bhubaneswar where he jumped 8.41m in June. During the Asian Athletics Championships in July, he qualified for the Olympics with a jump of 8.37m. Despite promise, he was below-par at the Worlds, managing a relatively below par 7.91m.