We have a job on hand: India paddler Sharath Kamal on Olympics preparation

Ace Indian paddler Sharath Kamal says it is not the best way to prepare for Tokyo Games when the country is in the midst of a deadly COVID19 pandemic but assured that the players will not be underprepared in their quest for a firstever Olympic medalIndiarsquos health care system is struggling to cope with an unprecedented second wave of COVID19 with the country reporting 3 lakh new cases and 2000 deaths on daily basis in the last few dayslsquoTrying to keep afloatrsquoldquoIt is not the way we should prepare for Olympics but we have to find a way to focus on our performance and work towards it We are trying to keep ourselves afloat and try to achieve the goalrdquo said Sharath during a virtual pressconference arranged by Sports Authority of India SAIGearing up for his fourth Olympics Sharath said he is ldquomentally betterrdquo as compared to last year when India was hit by COVID19 for the first timeldquoLast year we were scared afraid of everything there was only negativity I didnrsquot feel like playing with so many people dying Now we have a job at hand we have some sort of direction and goal to look atrdquo he saidldquoIt is not easy to have a clear plan and travelling is also an issue Earlier I could go for two weeks to China or Korea it was lot easier We were thinking of inviting few foreign players but now it is really toughrdquoIndia produced a good show at Asian Olympic Qualifiers in Doha last month with Sharath and Manika becoming the first Indian pairing to qualify for Tokyo Games by winning the event Sharath and Manika also booked their respective singles berth as did G Sathiyan and Sutirtha MukherjeeldquoI donrsquot think we are going to be under prepared In Doha we all did very well We had stayed in India and had trained with the resources we hadrdquo said the ninetime national championNo regrets about preparationldquoI felt my levels didnrsquot dip which means preparation is fine We can make use of what we have in hand I donrsquot think we will have any regrets about preparationrdquo said SharathTalking about the safety protocols during the Doha event he said ldquoWe were tested every 3rd day we had to maintain protocols There is a lot of stuff that is going on in the head other than the gamerdquoldquoI started in September after the lockdown it has been like this since then we donrsquot know how to handle it we still have to do our fitness and we donrsquot know how much of this distraction and negativity will affect our performancerdquoThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever