5 successful Indian Athletes who are University Graduates
Successful athletes are held in high regard in India. The prestigious likes of Virat Kohli are highly esteemed for their illustrious achievements, with such reputation making them staples on top bookmakers like Dafabet (easily accessible after a Dafabet app download).
But while these athletes are reputed for their extraordinary sporting achievements, some even combine an enviable sporting career with a glowing academic background.
This article will focus on a few Indian athletes who are university graduates and also excelled in their careers.
Manasi Joshi
Manasi Joshi is a skilled para-badminton player who has in her career so far broken headlines and won major titles for herself.
Manasi has always had a deep love for badminton since she was young. She had an accident in 2011 that led to the amputation of one of her legs; however, she didn’t let this stop her success.
She acquired a prosthetic leg and has since gone on to badminton stardom. Manasi is World number one in the women’s singles set of the Badminton World Federation for the para-badminton category. Manasi has won several awards, including 3 medals in the World Para-Badminton Championships.
The 31-year-old is a B.E.E graduate of Electronics Engineering from the K.J. Somaiya College of Engineering. She also used to work as a software engineer before she became a para-badminton player.
Sathiyan Gnanasekaran
Sathiyan is a table tennis player and has indeed brought a revolution to Indian table tennis. Sathiyan is the highest-ranked Indian table tennis player, currently ranked 39th in the world.
He is also the first Indian table tennis player to enter the World Top-25 ITTF rankings.
Sathiyan has been proving himself in world table tennis since 2016 when he won the ITTF Challenge Belgium Open title in the men’s singles category.
He also won 3 medals at the Commonwealth Games in 2018 and got a big break in his career when he defeated the Japanese champion at the Asian championships in 2019.
Sathiyan is a trained engineer with a Bachelor’s in Information Technology from St. Joseph’s College of Engineering in Chennai.
Shika Tandon
Shika Tandon is one of India’s prodigy swimmers and has acquired about 35 international and 150 national medals in the course of her career.
Tandon has been a professional since she was 12 and won her first international award at 16 at the World Championships. She has broken several national records, including the Junior and Senior National Aquatic Championships in 2001 and 2003.
Shika Tandon’s story to the limelight started simply because her brother was asthmatic, and in a bid to help him, their mum took him for swimming lessons and included Shika.
Shika studied Biotechnology at Bangalore University. She also went on to have a dual master’s degree from Case Western Reserve University.
She is the first Indian to be accepted by the United States Anti-Doping Agency and is currently a Science Program Lead.
Abishek Verma
Abishek Verma is one of India’s finest shooters in the 10m Men’s Air Pistol category. He has featured in several national and international games, including the 2018 world championships, Asian Championships 2018, and the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, to mention a few.
Abishek has a Bachelor of Technology from the Manav Rachna International Institute of Research and Studies. He was furthering his career in law when he picked up shooting as a hobby.
He got some practice at the Eklyava Shooting Range, where his mentor and other students noticed his shooting talent.
Abishek’s hooting career started late, and he was around 27 years of age when he made the life-changing decision to go into shooting full-time and leave aside his law and tech career.
He got his international break at 29 and is still playing, soaring higher in his career.
Vishwanathan Anand
Vishwanathan Anand is an Indian chess grandmaster and also a 5-time World Chess Champion. Anand has been a force in the world of chess for over three decades.
Anand learned chess early on from his mother, who was a chess enthusiast; however, his professional career began when he won the national sub-junior championships at age 14.
By age 16, Anand had won the national chess championships and, by age 17, became the first Indian to win the World Junior Chess Championship.
He also became India’s first grandmaster at age 18 and went on to beat a Russian grandmaster at that young age.
From then, Anand’s successes only increased, and he has been described as a colossal talent. His successes did not stop him from getting an education, as he has a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from Loyola College in Chennai.
These are some of the greatest athletes India has known, and they have been able to combine excellent careers with their education. Some of them have even pursued other careers. This should be a motivation for young athletes out there as they can get a good education while improving their careers.