There is so much of politics in sport that I sometimes wonder

The words of P. T. Usha, the fleet-footed daughter of India, echo with both triumph and lament: “There is so much of politics in sport that I sometimes wonder how did I survive for such a long time.” Here speaks not merely an athlete, but a warrior who raced not only against time, but also against forces unseen—forces of envy, rivalry, and the tangled webs of human ambition. Her voice rises like that of an elder, warning future generations that the contest of the body is pure, but the contest of the world around it is laden with shadows.

The ancients believed that sport was the mirror of the soul, a sacred field where man tested his limits against the eternal. Yet, as Usha reveals, the purity of this arena is often defiled by politics, where the swiftest legs and the strongest hearts are not always crowned, for the hands of the powerful may tip the scales. It is the intrusion of ego and the thirst for control that turn the noble contest into something darker. The athlete, then, is not only a runner upon the track but also a fighter in an unseen war.

Consider the story of Jim Thorpe, the Native American who triumphed in the 1912 Olympics. Though he proved himself the mightiest of his age, the rulers of sport stripped him of his medals on a mere technicality—that he had once played for small wages in baseball. Here was the poison of politics disguised as rule, the crushing of a hero by forces that sought to diminish rather than exalt. Yet history, like a patient judge, restored his honor many decades later, proving that truth outlives the intrigues of men.

In these words of Usha, we hear not despair, but the whisper of resilience. To say she survived is to proclaim that she endured the arrows of envy, the obstacles of bureaucracy, and the storms of injustice. She is like the lone tree upon a barren plain, battered by winds yet still standing, her roots sunk deep in willpower and her branches lifted toward the sky. Her survival is itself a form of victory, a beacon for every soul who feels the weight of unseen adversaries.

Let this be the lesson passed down: in the field of sport, as in the field of life, the race is not only against time or against rivals, but against the hidden hand of politics. Yet those who hold fast, who refuse to yield, who continue to run with hearts aflame, will find themselves remembered not for what was denied them, but for the greatness they carried within. For beyond the medals and beyond the laurels, the true prize is this—endurance, the spirit that survives when all else conspires to break it.