It’s difficult to quantify phrases like ‘giving back to the community’ from a sporting context. One athlete, though, satisfies the phrase. A Sharath Kamal, the ace Indian paddler who will step away from the table following this month’s World Table Tennis Star Contender event at Chennai. For nearly two decades, Sharath was the past, present and future of the sport in India. An ever-present like the seasons, he was – it still feels weird writing about the 42-year-old in the past tense – there, doing his thing across competitions. A national? He would invariably occupy the top-step of the podium. A Commonwealth Games? His neck would be adorned with multiple medals once every four years. Asian Games? A history-writing double in 2018. The Olympics? From a country still struggling to produce athletes capable of qualifying for the Games on merit, the Tamil Nadu man has been to five of these… an outlier any which way you want to look.His greatest legacy though? It’s in multiple ways. When he came into the sport, forget a ceiling. Even a floor didn’t exist. He literally built a house, showing Indians it was possible to make a name in the sport. In 2025, there’s a floor, a ceiling and a steady stream of players who all cite ‘Sharath anna’ (elder brother) as the reason for them picking table tennis as their calling. Away from the table, he also told Indians it was possible to lose with grace. In an interview he gave to this daily after coming back from the Birmingham Games in 2022, Sharath, unlike a lot of other athletes, spoke about why it was okay to be overlooked for the Khel Ratna award. “It’s the Khel Ratna alone which is missing,” he had said. “It’s for the best sportsperson across all sport. So, when you look at a Srikant Kidambi, World No 1… I’m World No 30. Then, Neeraj Chopra. Even before his gold at the Olympics, he had won Commonwealth Games, World juniors. So, how can I compare myself with them?“When I look at (PV) Sindhu coming and telling me ‘anna, what you have done is fantastic’ or a Gopichand ‘man, I don’t understand how you have done it’… it shows I have truly earned my spot among the best sportspersons .”
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