Mumbai : High on Hopes, the National Table Tennis Champion Manika Batra, in an interview with Free Press Journal on Friday talked about her preparations for the upcoming Rio Olympic 2016.She was in Mumbai for the felicitation function organised by Indian Oil, for her, Inderjeet Singh, K Srikanth, Manu Attri and Prarthana Thombare who have qualified for the Rio Olympic Games.
“It’s tough. I am currently training under a Korean coach along with my personal coach Sandeep Gupta, for daily six hours. Three in the morning and three in evening. I want to
match the abilities of Table Tennis dominants in the world,” said Manika.
This Olympic has proved to be historic for India as 4 peddlars (Soumyajit Ghosh, Achanta Sharath Kamal, Mouma Das and Maika Batra) have qualified.
“It also makes it special for us because for the first time ever, there are 4 qualifications for Table Tennis I am sure their experience will help me a lot.” said the 21-year old.
Unfolding her road to Rio, she talked about the family support and her hardwork throughout the journey.
“My journey to Olympics started from the age of 4. I used to play Table Tennis along with my academics. It has been my childhood love and forever will be, I am glad that I am a part for this sport than any other. At a very small age, I started dreaming of representing India and now it’s an amazing feeling as this Olympic is also my first one,” she said.
“My mother was very supportive throughout. She stood beside me whenever I wanted. To be honest, my whole family was supportive. Being a girl child, it was never like I should not focus in sports or anything like that,”
“Infact, my mother herself told me to focus on table tennis more than academic studies, this is not usual, but it happened because my mother always believed in me.” She added.
(To receive our E-paper on whatsapp daily, please click here. To receive it on Telegram, please click here. We permit sharing of the paper's PDF on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.)