Travel fatigue, mosquitos, no AC in rooms: Tanvi Patri’s off-court challenges
The Indian Express · Shivani Naik ·
15-year-old saved six match points in the 21-15, 13-21, 24-26 final loss to China's Junior World Champion Zang Yi Xin but off the court she faced hurdles
Rabinarayan Patri doesn’t subscribe to the sentiment that a good badminton smash — or a Youth Olympics silver — needs to extract struggle or suffering out of his daughter, Tanvi. “Silver was expected, so that’s ok,” Rabi would say, adding, “Her total travel time to World Juniors in Egypt was 28 hours. For the Youth Olympics, it was 44. Complaining never helps and I can’t blame anyone, but if we don’t look at comfort of athletes from this generation, they get irritated and it doesn’t work,” Rabi says, after the 15-year-old played a humdinger of a 82-minute Youth Olympics final at Dakar, Senegal, against 17-year-old Chinese Zang Yi Xin, despite logistical nightmares.
Tanvi returned to Odisha from China, where her father was an IT professional, at age 9 during Covid and trained in her home state for a year. “She would train with temperatures reaching 50 degrees and insane humidity which built her endurance. She won’t shy away from hard work. But at Dakar, she called up on Day 1 to say there were mosquitoes and no A/C in the rooms. And the long travel really affects her,” the father would add.
While Tanvi drew widespread praise for coming back from 10-19 down in the decider to eventually losing 21-15, 13-21, 24-26, warding off 6 match points from an opponent who is World Junior champion, Rabi says, it deserves 5 minutes of song and dance celebration at best. “If she celebrates this, what will she leave to celebrate for the big Olympic medal?” he says, adding that eating good food and resting up well is the best form of celebration. “This is just the start. She hasn’t achieved much,” he says, deeply influenced by the Chinese system that doesn’t hype up juniors gains.
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