On being a sportsperson and an amputee: Meet para-badminton medal winner Manasi Joshi

Manasi Joshi was involved in a road accident – she lost a limb, but not her passion for sport (Photo courtesy: Humans of Bombay)

Mumbai-based Manasi Joshi was a keen badminton player before an automobile accident left the athletic young woman with a missing limb.

On her way to work, Joshi, on a two-wheeler, was rammed into by a heavy truck. Rushed immediately to hospital, she was not operated upon until 7 hours later, by which time it was too late to save her left leg, which was amputated following an infection.

Joshi persevered to keep playing sport; she went through intensive physiotherapy, then using a prosthetic as she adapted herself mentally and physically to be able to continue doing what she was truly passionate about.

She spoke to Sportskeeda in an exclusive interview about the travails para-athletes in the country face, how bad conditions are, and what can be done to help them:

Were you a keen athlete prior to the accident, and what sports did you enjoy playing?

Before my accident, I used to play Badminton and would also participate in other sport like Athletics and box cricket.

Apart from the sports you play, which ones are you enthusiastic about? Who are your favourite players?

I am a fan of UMumba Kabaddi team and loved watching the PKL this time. I also follow para-athletics and Tennis. My favourite player are Rafael Nadal, Anup Kumar(Kabaddi), Shabbir Bapu(Kabaddi), and para-athletes Henrich Popow (German sprinter), Richard Whitehead (British athlete), Vanessa Low (German marathoner).

How was dealing with the prosthetic and physiotherapy for you, starting out? Did you face many issues?

Initially it was very difficult as I had to adapt to something completely artificial on me. I would find issues with my prosthetic fitment and alignment of my prosthesis where I also required a crutch as a support to balance myself. After some months of practice, I started to make my artificial leg a part of my body and learnt to adapt to it.

In addition to the obvious physiotherapy, you must have had to undergo counseling as well. Do you feel that in addition to helping you through your injuries, that has helped contribute to your sporting career?

It definitely helped me to move on and accept soon, as I was seeing how my body was adapting to my new disability. It was not an easy process at all, but definitely crucial.

How did you make a switch to playing badminton after your injuries and amputation, especially considering you had been a good shuttler before?

I was a very good badminton player before my amputation. After my amputation, I had to adapt myself to old badminton with my new prosthesis. Luckily, in para-badminton, classification takes place on the basis of disability and para-badminton is an inclusive sport catering to many disability types.

How difficult has it been to adapt your body to the demands of badminton?

It takes a toll on your body especially on my sound leg. Study shows that people with above knee amputation consumes seven times more energy while walking than an able-bodied person.

Me practising 1 hour is like an able-bodied athlete practising seven hours. I get frictional sores on my stump after few hours of practice and my feet requires a very good care. There are times that I am off prosthetic and allow my injuries to heal.

How has it been dealing with the regular travails and issues that any athlete faces, whilst dealing with the special adaptability your prosthetic requires?

Being a person with special needs, we need our sports complexes to be disabled friendly which usually is never the case. Washrooms need to be clean and hygienic catering towards the needs of the disabled – they are not.

Para-sports is not given much attention as a medal-winning prospect, and para-athletes are not treated at par with the able-bodied people.

As a result, we get no funding from the government and we have to spend money from our own pocket to not only train and for equipment but also to participate in national and international tournaments.

We usually do not get a sponsor because of poor visibility of para-sports and we end up spending our savings on our passion for sports.

Para-athletes also need an official escort for traveling, and it needs to be someone who is trained to deal with people with spinal cord injury. Our players have to usually spend money on this in addition to taking care of boarding and lodging in a place which requires special attention.

How prominent has your coaches' and physios' role been in helping your sporting success, and what would you say is a key part of it?

My coach is my brother, who checks videos on the internet and trains me to adapt myself. In India, we do not have dedicated coaches to train us depending on our disability.

We also do not have a dedicated team physiotherapist catering to our needs. For the World Championships camp, we luckily had Gaurav Khanna as a coach – he helped us a lot, and we had a sports physiotherapist from SAI (the Sports Authority of India) who would take care of our injuries.

What we lack are coaches, physios, nutritionist at state level and at a level where we practice. I am struggling to find a trained coach who can coach me depending on my disability.

What are some of the most significant challenges you feel you've faced through your sporting career so far?

I could go on and on here, so I’ll list these out:

1) Finding a good coach

2) finding a place to practice which is completely disabled friendly,

3) Sponsorship for International and National tournaments as well as equipment

4) Nutrition and diet

5) sometimes it is difficult to maintain work life balance. I have to calculate and take leaves from my work for tournaments

6) No government support at local level

7) Tournaments conducted at national level have no funding and we are not provided with facilities for participating in tournaments.

8) prosthetics, wheelchairs, equipments, etc for sports are expensive and thus because of no funding, we need to compromise on the quality.

There are numerous and I can go on with this list!

Considering the state of para-athletes in India, and that there are well-documented cases of para-athletes struggling through bureaucratic issues whilst registering for tournaments, then getting there and participating, what are some of the biggest issues you have personally faced?

Para-athletes are not given much recognition for the medals they win or laurels they bring for the country. Generally they just get lost in crowd inspite of dedicating their whole life to sports.

I myself have faced issues in finding sponsorships and thus withdrawing from a tournament. Sometimes tournaments organised at national level are cancelled at the last moment or are organised at the last moment and we end up spending a lot of money in participating.

Even after winning a silver at para-badminton world championships, we people were not congratulated by state or national government and our medal winning news was lost in translation. Because of no encouragement, I am sure people dont take up sport as a career.

India's paralympic committee got suspended this year, although athletes are still free to participate under the Olympic flag – what do you think of this?

It shows the state of how little attention is paid to parathletics in the country. I am happy that IOC suspended PCI because of ill treatment to its athletes.

After the Ghaziabad incident, SAI took over para sports and have made zonal centers to train para athletes, and now we Indians can participate under national flag. Still a lot needs to be done in the field of para sports.

But it’s still really difficult in so many ways, and bureaucratic red tape does not make it any easier.

What do you think is the need of the hour in terms of parathletics?

We have 6.5 million disabled people in India and we have medals in para sports that can be counted on fingers. This shows that we have failed as a country in producing paralympians.

We need zonal and local para-athlete bodies and organisations that find talent all across India. Encouraging people into Para sports is the need of the hour.

Accessibility, coaching, physiotherapy, apart from encouragement and training and finding the right talent is required. Funding para athletes via CSR activities is one thing that can be done. There are many ways to go about this, but at this point they are not being paid enough attention, and as a result, parathletes and their skills are neglected.