After his bronze medal in the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games, high jumper Tejaswin Shankar is a working athlete now.
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The 23-year-old Shankar, who was added in the squad last-minute on the orders of Delhi High Court,cleared 2.22m to finish third in the high jump event to win a bronze.
Post the CWG bronze and a short trip to India, Shankar is back in Kansas, working and training too. Shankar is working as an auditor in Kansas.
Kinda miss my college bartending days…. pic.twitter.com/nr2mEc76gZ
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— Tejaswin Shankar (TJ) (@TejaswinShankar) November 3, 2022
Earlier at Indian Express Idea Exchange, Shankar what is it like to study, train and compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
“When I got my first offer, I thought it was some sort of scam. ‘Aapko koi leke bhi jaa raha hai, padha bhi raha hai, rakh bhi raha hai, aur sab kuch free mein,’ (Your travel, education and stay is all free). I thought it was some sort of a kidnapping racket. Over time, when I did my research and started talking to coaches, I realised it’s a legit system. We always look at the example of other countries but never look at the example of Canada,” Shankar had told India Express.
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“After the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, Canada took a conscious effort to send their best athletes at the grassroot level — to the NCAA system. The result was that in 2016 you could see so many Canadians at the Olympics.
“Andre De Grasse (sprinter), Alysha Newman (pole vaulter) are all finds from the NCAA system that Canada utilised properly. Since I have gone through the system and have seen all of it, I personally advocate for it. I mean, it’s free and hum toh Indians hain aur free cheez toh humein waise bhi pasand hai (And us Indians love anything that’s free). If it’s free and we can use it, then why are we relying on the government to spend crores of rupees on sports budgets? Trust your athletes to come back home and perform at a high level,” he added.
