Father tries to accumulate Rs 20 lakh for daughter's Olympic dream

Shreya Jadhav, a class 9 student from Parel, made India proud by winning a gold medal in a Taekwondo international competition in Thailand. She now wants to represent India at the Olympic 2024. However, money has become a hurdle for her preparation. She is required to take part in several international competitions to qualify for the martial arts competition however, her father is having a hard time to arrange for the money for her international trips and training and this had led to hear fearing the fact she might lose out on her dream to win a medal for the country.

"I want taekwondo to be popular in India and want more people to know about it and participate in it. Nobody knows much about taekwondo here. People assume that it is similar to karate but it's not. I want to bring about that change by introducing taekwondo to people," says Shreya, the national U-14 taekwondo champion.

Her father- Nitin Jadhav works in a finance team of a private firm and while he has the capacity to sponsor for Shreya at various tournaments state-level and national-level tournaments, he cannot afford the cash to send her for international tournaments.

Shreya has taken part in only one international event so far, the 7th Tirak Taekwondo International in Thailand in October 2017, where she returned with a gold in her category. By participating at international competitions, an athlete gains an entry into the Global Membership System in order to qualify for the Olympics.

"Initially we signed her up for self-defence classes so she could learn to protect herself, however, this turned into passion, In 2017, when she won a gold medal at a competition in Thailand, her confidence increased further. However, I don't have the finance to enlist her in international competitions," said Jadhav. To qualify for the Olympics, she needs to participate in four such international competitions every year to earn points.

Shreya took up taekwondo at the age of four when her parents wanted their daughter to learn self-defence. The sport, however, grew on the young girl, who began competing at the age of six. Shreya went on to climb up the ladder and won medals in various state and national competitions, including winning gold in the U-14 Nationals in Chennai earlier this year.

Now, Nitin has started an online campaign on crowdfunding website ImpactGuru.com to raise the money for her training that has already raised Rs 1 lakh.

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