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Murali Sreeshankar’s motivation, self-manifestation: Shourya Ambure’s path to Youth Olympics
The 17-year-old 100m hurdler talks about how she found motivation to return from knee surgery
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"Biohack your body."
Shourya Ambure had to Google the term that Murali Sreeshankar used as his principal piece of advice to the 2025 Asian U-18 Athletics Championships bronze medallist.
The 100m hurdler was battling through a major knee injury ahead of a key competition, something India's top long jumper only knows all too well. Siddhanth Thingalaya, the former men's hurdles national record holder who trains alongside Shourya in Mumbai, was in touch with Sreeshankar and got the two connected.
“Biohack your body. You need to hack your brain, your body, and tell yourself that you're alright,” Shourya recalled Sreeshankar’s words. "He told me that it's all about the mind.”
Sreeshankar missed the 2024 Paris Olympics after his knee injury. His words motivated Shourya to neither lose hope nor the 2026 Youth Olympics after her knee injury.
In a year that began on an operating table, the 17-year-old got back up and running in time to head to Dakar and represent India in track and field at the Youth Olympics. The twice silver medallist at last year’s Asian Youth Games will compete in the 100m hurdles, in which she has a personal best timing of 13.86secs, on November 8.
External motivation played a part in that and so did internal manifestation. Four years ago, when the mention of Youth Olympics popped up on her coach Ajit Kulkarni's phone, the duo targetted the 2026 edition. No matter that the teen from Thane wasn't even competing in U-14 state meets back then.
"It was a big goal, but I believed in it," said Shourya, whose inspiration is American 400m hurdles star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. “I knew that if I wanted to do something big in this sport, I had to go through the experience of such a prestigious stage. We had planned for this for four years.”
The injury in December last year almost threw a spanner in the works. Training at the Railway ground in Ghatkopar, Mumbai, Shourya's left leg landed on a small hole on the turf and hit the hurdle. The Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) on her lead leg tore, two months after she had clocked her PB.
"It was really depressing," she said. “Normally, when athletes get injured, they get sad. That was the case with me too. But, in a way, I was happy that I got injured at the right time and not any later. It was still touch and go, but I had some time to recover (for the Youth Olympics).”
On January 1, Shourya underwent surgery at the Aspetar Hospital in Doha, Qatar. That advice also came from Sreeshankar, who underwent knee surgery at the same hospital in 2024. The teen stayed on crutches for one month before starting to gradually walk and then run after three months. Certain aspects of her rehab were progressing slower than expected and yet she did not stop believing.
"I had a photo of the Youth Olympics on the wall of my room and as my phone wallpaper. I was manifesting being there," Shourya said.
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And finding motivation by talking to Sreeshankar and watching videos of Jyothi Yarraji. India's 100m women’s hurdles national record holder also returned from a long injury layoff in June.
"I saw her comeback race at the Nationals, which really motivated me," Shourya said.
That was just over a month before her own comeback hurdles race, at a state meet in Nashik. "One day before the meet, I was not able to reach the hurdles. I got through that race through sheer willpower," she said.
A month on, at the U-18 Nationals in Ludhiana where she battled illness, Shourya clocked 14.01secs in the heats and fell at the 9th hurdle in the final. The winner, according to Shourya, held a US passport, which forced a retrial to determine the country's Youth Olympics entry in the lone athletics quota. Shourya won in Bengaluru, and realised her Dakar dream.
"Over the past four years, all I could think of was this one competition," said Shourya. "I want to truly enjoy the experience, and give the best for my country, my coach, and myself."
