Last year, at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Murali Sreeshankar had a heartbreak. He trained very well in the lead-up to his long jump event, but on that day, things didn’t go well.
“It was a huge mental shock for all my family members. I had two options, to brood over it or to get it out of my system and move ahead. I had to get over it and prepare for the Hangzhou Asian Games,” Sreeshankar recalled, as he spoke at RevSportz’s Trailblazers 2.0 Conclave on Friday.
The session was titled as The Winning Mantra: Dealing With Failure and Success. Mental strength, naturally, was a key part of the discussion. Sreeshankar showed plenty of it by winning the silver medal in Hangzhou last year.
Without mental strength, a sportsperson cannot excel. Anju Bobby George, the bronze medallist in long jump at the 2003 World Championships, concurred. “Mental strength is the main thing that every athlete needs to have,” said Anju, adding: “The current generation of athletes are showing that.”
Failures are part of the process for every sportsperson. It’s important to take lessons from failures and improve. As multiple Grand Slam winner tennis star Mahesh Bhupathi said: “It’s about focusing on the process. If you win, you put in work. If you lose, you put in work.”
Sreeshankar elaborated on the aspect. “Every season we learn something. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t. Every time you lose, you learn something.”
Deepthi Bopaiah, the CEO of GoSports Foundation, touched upon an important issue. “For us, it’s about giving the athletes the opportunity to excel,” she said.