KOCHI: A year can be a long time in an athlete's life. Just ask Murali Sreeshankar. Almost a year ago, the man who leaped to a silver medal in Birmingham late on Thursday night was experiencing the worst time of his life. A leap of just 7.69m on his Olympics debut, failure to qualify for the finals, the backlash that followed his poor performance in Tokyo and the Athletics Federation of India's (AFI) diktat to stop training under his dad left Sreeshankar in a dark space.
But he didn't have to look too far for support. Neeraj Chopra was his roommate in Tokyo and the Olympic gold medallist offered Sreeshankar a shoulder to lean on. "You have the talent. Keep believing in yourself. Work hard and the results will follow. I have tremendous belief in your abilities," Sreeshankar vividly remembers the words Neeraj told him when he returned to his room after a disappointing show in Tokyo.
