Focus on the event with passion: PT Usha’s words of wisdom to athletes

It has been decades since PT Usha hung up her boots and yet, everywhere she goes, the now 60-year-old get mobbed.

On Friday, it was the turn of the media, hot in pursuit of the Payyoli Express at the 8th Elite Women's National Boxing Championship in Great Noida with an intention of quizzing her on a host of recent developments.

The most prominent was the matter of the state associations seemingly keeping its boxers from competing at the championships.

“It’s always obstacles and challenge but players should focus on their event with passion and dedication, only then there will succeed,” she said, without batting a eye.

It is that very philosophy that kept the hunger burning in a young PT Usha that set out to conquer the nation and then the continent in her heydays.

“I feel bad for the boxers,” she said, when asked how the under seize athletes might feel at this time.

In what was a clear gesture of motivation, she was quick to whip out examples from her own life as a fiercely competitive track and field athlete.

“In my time, I had no ground to race on. Wherever I was, I made that place a ground. If I kept waiting for the ground, nothing would have been possible.”

There was never a doubt over the fact that PT Usha is a fighter, but that very tenet continues to shine in her after taking over the reigns of the Indian Olympic Association as its President.

Her tussles with the ecosystem as an administrator is very well documented and yet, she soldiers on with gusto.

“Challenges will be there everywhere. If you're heading something, you'll have different opinions, that, you'll have to overcome,” she said, as if brushing aside the everyday opposition she receives as an administrator.

And it is this fighting spirit that she wishes to pass on to the athletes of the country, ones that she wishes to see flourish on the global stage and for whom, she is willing to go the distance.

“For me, when you take something, I should see the end with success, it’s from within for me.”