Tokyo 2020: Sprinter Arokia Rajiv backs Indian contingent to beat London Olympics medal count in Tokyo
Rajiv, an Arjuna Awardee and 4×400 meter sprinter, feels the adrenaline rush as the long-awaited Tokyo Olympics just lies a few days ahead. Rajiv spoke on SportTiger’s special interview series “Mission Gold” as the relay team marches on to represent India at the quadrennial mega event.
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Tokyo 2020 has been the talk of the town for quite some time and with it being delayed by a year’s time due to the Covid-19 pandemic and all the practices coming to a standstill for a while affected everyone mentally. Rajiv was no different as he spoke about the obstacles that the athletes had to go through to find the calm of mind in order to maintain their physical form.
He said, “The pandemic made us mentally disturbed, somehow we have managed to fight against it but it had left its impact on our minds. We had regular practices but the sudden imposition of lockdown took us to zero as we couldn’t go on the ground and when we started again from the scratch another lockdown was imposed and we were back to square one. But with Olympics being so close in front of our sights, we were determined to get ourselves through a little trouble to get there. We tried to keep ourselves fit with whatever exercises we could do at home.
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“After a few months, AFI sent us to Patiala where we practiced for a year to prepare for competitions. Meanwhile, the number of Covid-19 cases in India kept increasing and many countries banned to and fro flights from India and hence we couldn’t get opportunities to participate in many competitions.”
