The 23-year-old from Mumbai feels this global health crisis can also have an impact on the performance at the Olympics but he is trying to stay positive
Chirag Shetty. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi
His grandfather was among those who lost their lives during the devastating second wave of COVID-19 in India and doubles badminton player Chirag Shetty says it was his Olympic dream that helped him break away from the grief.
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During a four-day break from training in Mumbai in April, Chirag lost his maternal grandfather to COVID-19, which also infected his uncle and none could attend the funeral. “It was a difficult phase,” the shuttler, who will leave for Tokyo on Saturday with the first batch of the Indian contingent, recalled.
A difficult time
“In April, when the situation was pretty bad in India, seeing so many people die because of COVID was tough. In my family, I lost my maternal grandfather, it was a difficult time,” he said.
“But the good thing was I was able to practice, so I could detach myself from it, badminton really helped. But it was a really difficult phase.” More than three months have passed since the loss but COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on the lives of people around the globe.
“Playing in the Olympics is the highest honour but at this point of time, with the pandemic still going on, everyone is a bit scared about false positives coming out. So we don’t know how things would be in Tokyo,” he said referring to the false-positive cases that affected the players in Thailand Open and the All England Championship.
Training affected
Did it affect his training as well? “It was definitely difficult to train, firstly because there were not many tournaments. In April and May, the situation was pretty bad and there was a lockdown, and training in such difficult conditions was tough but we stuck to it,” Chirag said.
The 23-year-old from Mumbai feels this global health crisis can also have an impact on the performance at the Olympics but he is trying to stay positive. “Definitely, it can affect performance in Olympics but personally we need to keep in mind, that if tournaments have to go ahead, then we will have to take the test every day. “We will have to see the brighter side that even during the pandemic, an event as big as Olympics is taking place.”
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