Trailblazer Kanak Jha aims for historic table tennis medal for US at Olympics

SINGAPORE – A missing +1 dialling prefix cost Kanak Jha more than a year’s disruption to his career, but that has not stopped the United States table tennis player from achieving more milestones.

For 16 months between December 2022 and March 2024, the 24-year-old was suspended by the US Anti-Doping Agency for accumulating three whereabouts failures within a 12-month period. This was after he did not include the +1 country code for his phone number in a form, resulting in him being uncontactable by anti-doping officials.

Such information allows anti-doping organisations to locate athletes without notice, as knowing where they can be found for testing is key to ensuring effective anti-doping programmes.

Jha’s initial 12-month ban was extended to 16 after he violated the initial provisional suspension by participating in an exhibition match.

He told The Straits Times: “It was tough in the beginning to accept what happened. I didn’t agree with the way it went down, but I just got to adapt to the situation. So I just tried to keep my head low and spend time off the court with my family.”

Incredibly, despite losing the ability to play on the World Table Tennis tour – which was his main source of income – he turned to crowdfunding to prepare and qualify for the 2024 Olympics. In Paris, he made it through the preliminaries to reach the last 16 of the singles – the furthest any American man had gone. And Jha wants to continue blazing a trail for his countrymen in the sport.

On Feb 5, when competing in only his second Singapore Smash, he eliminated Sweden’s world No. 7 and Olympic silver medallist Truls Moregard in the second round.

This follows his stunning upset of Japan’s world No. 3 Tomokazu Harimoto in the first round of the 2022 edition.

The world No. 56 eventually lost 3-0 (11-7, 11-5, 11-5) to Germany’s world No. 10 Qiu Dang in the round of 16 on Feb 6, earning US$9,500 (S$12,900).

Once described as a prodigy, Jha insisted his success is the result of hard work on and off the table – he trains five to six hours a day and takes care of his diet and mental health, including rest and recovery.

He said: “Honestly, perhaps with my talent skill level, I shouldn’t be as good as I am, but I’ve proven that everything is possible, and I know I will keep going forward.

“I’m really disciplined, and that’s one of the biggest reasons that made me what I am.”

Born to Indian parents in California, he picked up a bat aged five after following his older sister Prachi to training sessions at a local community centre. The latter would also go on to be a national player.

Unlike table tennis powerhouses China and Japan, the sport is not well supported in the US – there are an estimated 19 million recreational players but just 234 clubs affiliated with USA Table Tennis.

And so, at 15, Kanak decided to take his development across the Atlantic, moving to Sweden before relocating to Germany. It paid dividends as he qualified for the Rio 2016 Games, where he was Team USA’s youngest member at 16 years and seven weeks old.

The former boys’ Under-18 world No. 1 also competed at Tokyo 2020. The US has never won a table tennis medal at the Olympics and Jha, a 2018 Youth Olympics bronze medallist, wants to change that.

He said: “Last year, it was all about the Paris Olympics. This year, it’s a lot about regaining my ranking, and then going further. Looking forward, the biggest one will be Los Angeles 2028 on home soil.

“In Paris, I started from the prelims and lost to the eventual gold medallist (Fan Zhendong) in the last 16. Winning an Olympic medal is the big goal, and I do believe in myself and that everything’s possible.”