Former Indian table tennis player V Chandrasekhar succumbs to COVID-19

CHENNAI:  The Arjuna award-winning former Indian table tennis player V Chandrasekhar died yesterday at a private hospital in Chennai due to COVID-19-related complications.

He was 64 years old and leaves behind a wife and a son.

Chandrasekhar was a three-time national champion and the president of the Tamizhaga Table Tennis Association, as well as the director and head coach of the city's SDAT-Medimix TT Academy.

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The Chennai-born athlete, who reached the Commonwealth Games semifinals in 1982, was also a professional coach.

After a failed knee operation in a hospital in 1984, he lost mobility, voice, and vision and his playing career was cut short.

He recovered and returned to the game as a coach. He also had a court dispute with the hospital, which ended in his favour.

Chandrasekhar was also a gold medallist in BA (Economics) and Law at the time of the career-ending injury.

He was able to regain 70-80% of his usual mobility after that he wanted to concentrate on training promising players.

Union sports minister Kiren Rijiju saddened the demise of the player took to Twitter and wrote, “Saddened to learn about the demise of V Chandrashekhar, an ace table tennis player of the 1980s, and an Arjuna Awardee, who went on to become a 3-time national champion. He later mentored a number of players who emerged as top paddlers. His contribution will never be forgotten.”

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