CWG 2022: Indian table tennis team's sports psychologist Gayatri Vartak excluded from final support staff list

The Indian table tennis contingent for the upcoming Birmingham Commonwealth Games 2022 (CWG 2022) has an important name missing from the list.

Gayatri Vartak, a noted sports psychologist working with many members of the CWG 2022-bound squad, has not made it to the final list of support staff going to Birmingham.

A former badminton player, Vartak was on the long list (published on the TTFI website) of players and support staff for CWG 2022 but has not made the final squad. The former badminton player turned sports psychologist was a part of the Indian table tennis team's national camp in Bengaluru in May.

Read: India at CWG 2022: Full list of Indian athletes who have qualified for Commonwealth Games 2022 (Updated)

Teams seldom follow squad guidelines

Although the guidelines state that the support staff should be less than 33 percent of the athlete count, the rule is seldom followed to the cue. In the case of table tennis too, the rules have been broken.

The Indian table tennis squad consists of eight members and a support staff of six individuals.

Two national coaches, S Raman and Anindita Chakraborty, Manika Batra's personal coach Chris Adrian Pfeiffer, masseur Harmeet Kaur, physio Vikash Singh and team manager S D Mudgil, who is a member of the High Court-appointed Committee of Administrators running the TTFI, will travel with the team as support staff to CWG 2022.

Indian men's table team national coach Raman also happens to be the personal coach of Sathiyan Gnanasekaran.

The importance of sports psychology for CWG 2022-bound athletes

Achanta Sharath Kamal, who has been part of the Indian national team for two decades, in an earlier conversation stated that mental training and conditioning, just like physical training and conditioning, is a daily process. He said:

“It (mental conditioning) has to be done in every session. There are techniques that our mental conditioning coach teaches us that we follow pre-session, during the session, and post-session. These don't come overnight. There is a particular way you train in each of your sessions and that helps you. All this is a very essential part of mental preparation."

Dr. Chaitanya Sridhar, a holistic sports psychologist and peak performance analyst, told this correspondent in an earlier conversation that the key for athletes at big events is to develop a good mental space. She said:

"Athletes should ask for support from the right people if they are unduly worried. It can even be a senior, a coach or a mentor if they can't access a sport psychologist."

With a lot of emphasis on the need to be mentally strong during important tournaments, Indian paddlers have been deprived of a chance to avail expert services at the prestigious Games.