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Yeh dil maange more: A week of tears, triumph and history for Tejaswin Shankar
Yeh dil maange more: A week of tears, triumph and history for Tejaswin Shankar
Glasgow, Four days ago, Tejaswin Shankar cut a lonely figure crouching on his haunches as he tried to suppress tears. A familiar knee injury had resurfaced after just one attempt in the high jump competition, turning his Commonwealth Games into a nightmare before they had barely begun.
On Friday evening, he stood in the same stadium with a decathlon bronze medal hanging from his neck, grinning through emotions that had swung from despair to disbelief in less than a week.
"Guys, I won't cry today," he quipped as he walked into the mixed zone after becoming the first Indian to win a Commonwealth Games medal in the decathlon.
The 27-year-old had arrived in Glasgow chasing another podium finish in high jump, the event in which he made history by winning India's first-ever Commonwealth medal four years ago.
Instead, a long-troubling knee flared up after his very first attempt, forcing him to withdraw. The tears that followed were not of pain. They were of surrender.
"If I was alone, I would have probably given up," Tejaswin told PTI.
"When I was standing there crying, those were tears of giving up. I was thinking one year is gone, the Commonwealth Games are gone, maybe the Asian Games are gone too. I went down a very negative spiral."
Only four days later, the same athlete stood smiling with history around his neck.
"I have seen in two days how emotions can change. Today I am standing with a medal around my neck. I have no words. It's just unreal."
Tejaswin had won bronze in the high jump at Birmingham in 2022, becoming the first Indian medallist in the event at the Commonwealth Games. This time, he climbed the podium in an entirely different discipline.
"That makes it even more special," he said.
"I had a bronze in high jump in the previous edition and now one in the decathlon. I don't know how many people have been able to do that."
And why did he choose to compete in the decathlon alongside high jump?
"Yeh dil mange more..I just want more," he said with a smile. High jump is good, but when you can do more, why shouldn't you? I believe when you can push yourself, why mustn't you?"
But before the medal came the moment that almost broke him.
As Tejaswin went down a negative spiral after the high jump event, one athlete sought him out.
Long jumper Murali Sreeshankar, himself no stranger to career-threatening injuries after battling back from a ruptured patellar tendon, knew exactly what his teammate was going through.
"When I went back completely broken after high jump, the one person who came up to me.. and this is the only person's advice I would have taken at that time...was Sreeshankar," Tejaswin said.
"He had the same injury...a lot worse than me, ruptured his tendon, and he's jumping on a new leg right now."
Rather than thinking about surviving 10 gruelling events over two days, Sreeshankar urged him to take it one event at a time.
"He told me, 'Just take one event at a time. Show up, warm up for the 100 metres. If it doesn't feel right, stop.'"
"I didn't let my mind get into what would happen in the 1,500 metres or the shot put or any other event."
As the competition wore on, the impossible gradually became possible.
"Sree was one of the main reasons. His words just kept coming back to me," he said.
"Everybody says it, but he's the epitome of resilience."
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
