The start of the Paris Olympics 2024, starting on July 26, is now only a few days away and following their historic tally of seven medals at Tokyo 2020, India will hope for an even better performance this time around.
Among the athletes representing India at the upcoming Olympic games, is the 29-year-old Manika, one of the leading Table Tennis players in the country.
Ahead of the major sports event, Manika Batra revealed in an interview to the Indian Express her admiration for Indian star cricketer Virat Kohli and about his influence on her as a fellow athlete.
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What did Indian Olympian Manika Batra say about Virat Kohli?
The 29-year-old Table Tennis star, Manika Batra, who rose to national fame after she won four medals, including two golds at the Commonwealth Games in 2018 revealed that she is a massive Virat Kohli fan.
In an interview with the Indian Express, Manika revealed the reason why she became a fan of the star cricketer Kohli, almost a decade ago:
It’s because of how he [Virat Kohli] handles everything that happens to him, and how passionate he’s about winning through all that. And how he enjoys playing cricket.
Manika, like Kohli, grew up in Delhi, in a Punjabi household, and found the cricketer to be very relatable for his "Delhi persona" and for the passion that he displays on the field.
She also said that she had to cut down on a lot of Punjabi food as a Table Tennis athlete representing India at the international level.
I used to like Chhole bhature so much. I’m a Punjabi, we love food. And had a sweet tooth too. But as TT became a priority, I stopped liking sweet automatically. I don’t feel like eating it only, so now it’s more of salads.
Manika's story follows a similar path to that of Kohli, who has mentioned in several interviews about having to make sacrifices in his diet, to become an elite athlete. As captain of the Indian team, he also led a fitness revolution, inspiring many of his peers to focus on the non-cricketing side of the game as well, in the process.