Tarneit’s Aanchal Sharma recently won the School Sport Victoria’s Lindsay Gaze Outstanding Sports Leadership Award for her success as a competitive table tennis player.
But the 16-year-old is adamant the sport is more complicated than most might believe.
“[People think] you just hit the ball and you don’t need discipline and you don’t need any hand coordination skills, a lot of people just think as long as it makes it to the other side, you’re playing table tennis,” Sharma said.
“There’s a lot of different things other than just smacking or hitting the ball, you learn how to spin the ball, you learn how to control the ball under different circumstances.”
Sharma said it’s her goal to create an “inclusive sporting environment” that positively impacts others.
“When I started playing table tennis, there was three girls out of 20, and I was kind of told by the other boys that I wasn’t going to be good enough to play,” Sharma said.
While the comments made her feel “disappointed” Sharma was “determined” to challenge the idea and continued to work hard.
“I think there’s no such as a too masculine or too feminine sport,” she said.
“I’ve had people come up to me and say like how I made an impact on them and that’s just really nice.”
Ms Sharma said she hopes to see more promotion and encouragement to get women involved in sports.
“It’s just really disappointing how a lot of girls aren’t really confident to play in male dominated sport, or maybe they’re not really like pushed to challenge themselves,” she said.
“They should host programs for young girls, led by female athletes, which work towards increasing confidence or self awareness for girls.”
