Why do we organise the Trailblazers conclave? Is it just to celebrate the medal winners who have made India proud? Or is it to celebrate sport and not just the medals? For us, every athlete who did not win in Paris 2024 is also a winner and champion of the future. We are as much keen to know about their mental health and support them. Document their stories, and celebrate them in the very same way that we do a Neeraj Chopra or a PR Sreejesh.
To quote Abhinav Bindra, who is a regular at the conclave, “The most important lesson that sport teaches us is how to lose. It is not about how to win. In sport, you will lose far more than you will ever win. In my career, I have competed in some 1,780 competitions. At best, I won 180 of them. Now that might sound quite a few, but the truth is I lost in 1600 competitions. And in the process, learnt what sport is all about. I learnt from every loss and it got me closer to success”.
The truth is each one of our athletes try to be perfect on an imperfect day. The decisive one percent drives them, and it is this home stretch that will be their legacy.
The lessons learned from the Olympic Games and Paralympics in Paris will doubtless be a key part of the conversations at the Tata Steel #Trailblazers3. It will once again foster dialogues that take Indian sport forward.@BoriaMajumdar ✍️#NextIsNowhttps://t.co/ENdhUmqTM4
— RevSportz Global (@RevSportzGlobal) February 26, 2025
While the conclave is about sportspeople, it is also about lessons that sport teaches us – humility and inclusivity. That’s why we will end the conclave with what we call ‘The empowerment walk’, organised in collaboration with House of Pataudi. It isn’t a fashion parade. None of us have the bodies of models, and our purpose is very different. We want to make a statement on International Women’s Day and walk for a cause. We want to walk for women athletes and women’s empowerment, and for Paralympic athletes and the quest for equality. We are all part of a movement – a movement for sport and one that is determined to make a difference.
As Manasi Joshi had said in Trailblazers 2.0, “It is not easy to be a Paralympic athlete in India. More so if you are a woman. For the longest time, people looked at you with sympathy. As if you are a loser, and have little or nothing to look forward to. The truth is we are all athletes. Yes, we have a certain disability, but then 15 percent of the world is men and women with disability. For an organisation to recognise that and make the conclave inclusive stood out for us. We weren’t just a footnote. Rather, all of us were real stories.”
Manasi will be there again. And she will help shape the narrative with 30 of her colleagues who will be there interacting with each other over the three days between March 6 and 8, 2025. Alongside the formal sessions, we will witness a Pullela Gopichand speaking to someone like Navdeep Singh or Sumit Antil, and passing on intellectual capital. We will witness Sreejesh guiding a youngster like Payal Nag. Finally, we will see Sourav Ganguly interacting on leadership lessons with Harmanpreet Singh. These backstage conversations are as important, and help give the conclave its true meaning and legacy. The countdown has started.
