PALAKKAD: While beginning to practise long jump at the age of nine, M Sreeshankar created an email address, olympianshankaran@ gmail.com. His mother K S Bijimol, an athlete herself, was a bit surprised with his act as she knew how tough it was to make it to an Olympic squad. But Sreeshankar, a resident of Yakkara in Palakkad, achieved it and qualified for the Tokyo Games with a national record of 8.26M.
The 23-year-old failed to win any medal in the Japanese capital but did not disappoint at the ongoing Commonweal th Games in Birmingham and bagged a rare silver medal in the sport for the country with a performance of 8.08m. In the final, Laquan Nairn of Bahamas too had a best jump of 8.08m, but his second best of 7.98m was better than Sreeshankar’s 7.84m.
As per rules, if two jumpers are tied on same distance, the one who has a better second best effort will be ranked ahead. Sreeshankar had raised hopes of a historic medal at the Eugene World Championships in the US last month, but his best effort (7.96M) was way below his season’s best of 8.36m, with three of his six jumps being red-flagged. He was determined this time. Determination has been the youngster’s hallmark.
Rather, he has been trained to be like that by his family of sportspersons. His father S Murali, a SAF Games silver medallist, is his coach. “They share an excellent bond, the result of which is for everyone to see,” said Bijimol. She was a silver medallist in 800M at the Asian Junior Athletics Championships in 1992. His younger sister Sreeparvathy is a heptathlete and is doing her first year MBBS at the Thiruvananthapuram Medical College.
The gates and front door of his house and the teapoy of its drawing room have the five interlaced Olympic rings. “Sreeshankar was selected for the last Commonwealth Games at Gold Coast in Australia four years ago, but could not make it as he had to undergo a surgery for a ruptured appendix,” said Bijimol. Unlike most youths of his age, Sreeshankar does not mind making sacrifices. “He does not eat oily food, be it fried chicken or fish. Ice cream too is a strict ‘no’ and he has been drinking only sugar-free tea from an early age,” said Bijimol.
Sreeshankar does not go to movies or for sightseeing as he fears losing his focus. His regular workouts were affected during the time of Covid but Murali, who is a chief reservation supervisor with the Railways, set one up for his son at their house itself. Sreeshankar is not averse to studies though. He had secured A-plus in all subjects from Kendriya Vidyalaya.
For Plus-II , he secured 96%. He joined the NSS College in Palakkad for an engineering course and was the topper at the university level in the first semester. He dropped out and joined Victoria College for BSc Maths and passed with 15th rank at the university level.
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