Para-badminton star Manasi Joshi eyes Tokyo Olympics, calls her family an inspiration

Indian para-badminton star shares details of the people, who have inspired her, as she aims to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics.

World No 2 in SL3 singles Manasi Joshi has the Para-badminton World Championship gold to her name this year. For the next, the 30-year-old is hoping to add an Olympic medal. With her family as her inspiration, the para-badminton star is confident she can push herself and achieve that.

She told ET Panache, "I have been inspired by my whole family altogether - my parents, my siblings. I have seen them doing work to the top of their potential. If you see my father, even when he was retiring, he was making sure that he is preparing. He is a scientist, he was studying things. My brother has also become a researcher, my sister is also doing things at the top of her profession. Seeing people in my family has definitely inspired me."


The Indian para-badminton player says that when she was studying engineering, she only played badminton for fitness purpose. "I played in the school and university level. But competitively I did not play. At my time it was either studies or sports. Both required immense number of hours. Nobody was pursuing badminton much. There was Aparna Popat who was in the newspaper and Pullela Gopichand who were playing professionally. I did not have any role models at that time. I was not able to leave my studies and pursue sports. Right now there are so many role models, that people leave their studies to pursue sports," she said.