Tejas Shirse will be looking to open India’s medal account in athletics as the track and field events begin at ther Glasgow Commonwealth Games on Monday. Shirse had broken the men’s 110m hurdles national record with a time of 13.27s during Indian Athletics Series in Ludhiana last month, and has carried that form into the season after winning gold at Inter-State Athletics Championships in Bhubaneswar.He had also claimed the Federation Cup title in Ranchi and will be hoping for a strong showing in his maiden Commonwealth Games. However, all this still feels like a dream considering he was sidelined for more than four months after suffering a serious right ankle injury late last year.“To be honest, 13.27 wasn’t even part of the plan. Even qualifying for Commonwealth Games wasn’t something we were thinking about initially. But things worked out and I was able to achieve both,” Shirse had said after his victory in Bhubaneswar.The injury marked one of the lowest points of his career, something he wrote about in detail in an Instagram post in March that began with the words, “I hate it!” The period was so difficult that, at times, he went days without sleeping and was “angry and frustrated to the point of snapping.”“People kept talking about my ‘potential’, and I started hating that word because everyone said I had so much potential, yet I wasn’t able to show it,” he said.Shirse, however, kept believing in himself and, with the support of his team, emerged stronger. “I’ve come out of that phase as a much more mature person. I take every experience positively now,” he said. “Looking back, I’m happy I went through that phase because it changed me.”Besides his physio Nilesh Makwana and coach James Hillier, what helped him most during that period was patience. He believes the experience prepared him for “the battles on the track and in life as well.”He, however, kept much of it away from his family so as not to worry them. His coach, James Hillier, though couldn’t have been prouder of his comeback.“We only resumed track training on April 13, and exactly two months later, on June 13 in Ludhiana, he broke the national record. That’s an extraordinary achievement,” Hillier said. What’s going to be an even bigger achievement is if he makes it to the podium. It’s challenging but Hillier thinks it’s possible.Besides Shirse, the trio of Sarvesh Kushare, Tejaswin Shankar and Aadarsh Ram will look to light up the evening session in the men’s high jump final. Kushare heads into CWG on a high after breaking the national record with a leap of 2.31m and is joint fourth on this season’s world list. Shankar, meanwhile, won bronze at the previous edition, while Ram has a personal best of 2.27m.In the men’s long jump qualification, Murali Sreeshankar and Lokesh Sathyanathan will be in action, while Gurindervir Singh begins his campaign in the opening round of the men’s 100m. Gurindervir broke the national record in Ranchi with a time of 10.09 seconds and has sounded confident of putting up a good show on his CWG debut.
