'The Pandemic Has Left Us With Very Few Choices'

“Life comes first.” PV Sindhu was at pains to point this out,, repeatedly, during an hour-long virtual interaction with TOI. on Wednesday. India’s lone women’s singles badminton. player to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics is juggling. concerns over form and fitness even as the coronavirus. rages and uncertainty looms. She has also taken to. meditation and painting to calm herself. Excerpts….

Carolina Marin has pulled out of the upcoming Olympics. Does that strengthen your medal prospects in Tokyo?

It’s sad that she won’t be competing in Tokyo because of an unfortunate injury. I hope she recovers soon. I will miss her on-court presence. We share a healthy rivalry and off-court. We are good friends.

As for Tokyo, it’s not going to be easy at all. All the top-10 players are of same standard and the level of competition will be really, really high.

Players like Ratchanok Intanon, Nozomi Okuhara, Tai Tzu-ying, Akane Yamaguchi and An Se-young will be looking to give their 100%. I will need to be in top form. I will be taking one match at a time.

Like everyone else, it’s been a tough year-and-a-half for sportspersons too. How have you been coping with this pandemic-induced situation, especially during lockdowns?

Everything has come to a standstill. We were in lockdown and, for a majority of the past year, not hosting any tournaments. Recently we returned to some tournament action but then all other events got cancelled soon enough.

These are tough times, but for me life comes first. We need to take care of ourselves. It’s important to stay safe. During the lockdown… well, that was the first in a very long time that I was staying at home and spending quality time with my parents. Before that, it was about coming back from tournaments, training at home and again off to events.

Has the pandemic shown up differences between the first world and developing nations when it comes to sports infrastructure? It seems we lacked facilities and resources to train during a situation like this…