Weeks before the 2026 Asian Games, 25-year-old Jay Meena could barely climb a flight of stairs. Typhoid had left him eight kilograms lighter, bedridden and racing against time. In Nagoya, the 25-year-old overcame illness, injury and self-doubt to win India's first-ever Asian Games medal in Soft Tennis, completing an extraordinary journey that began with a school rustication.
The financial condition was not so good. We had to force him to stay back because my father could not afford more than what was costing me to play. That’s why my brother went into Engineering.
For me, this is an Olympic medal. It’s no less than an Olympic medal. All the strongest teams come in the Asian contingent. So this feels like an Olympic medal to me because Soft Tennis is not part of the Olympics
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