Tokyo Olympics: Sharath Kamal plans short training camps in Europe, foreign sparring partners to prepare

New Delhi, March 20: Senior India paddler Achanta Sharath Kamal qualified for his fourth Olympics after a dominant win over Pakistan's Muhammad Rameez at the Asian Olympic Qualification tournament in Doha on Thursday (March 18).

The 38-year-old paddler from Chennai defeated Rameez 11-4, 11-1, 11-5, 11-4 in a little over 22 minutes in the second men's singles round-robin match in South Asia group to become the first Indian to secure a berth in the Tokyo Olympics.

After losing his opening game to compatriot Sathiyan Gnansekaran, Sharath came back strongly and won the second match to book a ticket to Tokyo in July.

One quota is awarded to the highest-ranked second-placed player in the event, and Sharath, being the top-ranked player in the group, secured the berth under the Asian quota.

Talking exclusively with MyKhel over the phone, the Tamil Nadu paddler seemed elated with his performance especially after the Covid-19 pandemic induced lockdown.

"I am really happy to have qualified for my fourth Olympic Games now, it's been a difficult time especially during the Covid-19 break. We really didn't know how or what our preparation should be from march until august. From then we started to focus on our training and tried to improve on our performance and ranking."

Talking about his future preparations, Sharath said, "So now after a year I am really happy that I could make it to the Olympic games, but the main aim will be to win an Olympic medal but there aren't many tournaments going to come up in the next month due to the current situation in the whole world. There will be a couple of tournaments in China in the month of May."

In the meantime Sharath is planning to attend some short training camps in Europe but will mainly train in Chennai by inviting a foreign sparring partner and practice in warm home conditions will help him get acclimatised with the climatic conditions in Japan. Sharath won the Oman Open around this time last year before the lockdown was imposed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Apart from that, I would like to continue my training in Chennai a little bit. I'll have Chennai as my base but will also keep travelling to Europe for a shorter training camp and will also invite a few sparring partners in India to train here in warmer Indian conditions which will be more or less like in Japan."

Sharath also claimed that going into the Tokyo Olympics he's pretty confident for he's entering the quadrennial event with his best rankings and form.

"I hope to give my best at the Olympic games which I guess would be my best because this would be the best-ever ranking I've ever had going into the Olympic games and performance-wise have been doing really well. Recently I played the last 16 in two tournaments in Doha. I have been in good shape and defeated World number 16 and World number 50, so I hope to continue my good run into the Olympics too," he signed off.