Kanak Jha is the First U.S. Male Table Tennis Player to Reach Round 32 at the Olympic Games Since 1992

Indian American table tennis star Kanak Jha made history at the ongoing Paris Olympics, defeating Korea’s Cho Daeseong, 4-2. With this huge upset, the 24-year-old became the first male athlete from the U.S. to reach the round of 32 at the Olympic Games since Jimmy Butler in 1992. Daeseong is currently ranked No. 20, while Jha is 125th in the world ranking. 

Jha is a five-time U.S. national champion, and Pan American champion. He also made a quarterfinal appearance in the world championship. This is Jha’s third time in the Olympics as he also competed in Rio in 2016 and in Tokyo in 2021. He was 16 when he qualified for the Rio Olympics in 2016, as the youngest member of Team USA. But lost early. Five years later, in Tokyo, he again lost early. He was on track to make it to the Olympics for a third time, but a suspension in March 2023, almost sent him back to square one.

The drug-testing violation suspension was salted on Jha when he failed to write the +1 code next to his U.S. phone number on a form. When the tester tried to reach him, the call didn’t go through. Thus, he was banned for missing three drug tests and was suspended for one year by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

The suspension caused Jha to miss 17 months of his career. Being cut off from his source of income, he went home to Milpitas, California, and practiced, prepared, and hoped. When he returned from his suspension, Jha had no ranking points. He had to compete in two separate trials to earn a spot in Paris. He started a GoFundme to pay his expenses and brought in $13,434, much less than the $100,000 goal. “Every dollar was spent in preparation for this Olympics,” he told Sports Illustrated. 

Speaking about returning to practice after over a year of a break, Jha told Drew Silverman for a blog on the TeamUSA website, that it was like “) to 100” for him. “It was very stressful and very difficult after such a long break,” he said. “But I’m very proud of the way I came back.” His goal was to qualify for the Paris Games, he said, adding that he “managed to do it,” and “that’s all that matters.”

Jha has often spoken about his experiences of being an Indian-American table tennis player in the United States. Commentators pronounce his last name “Ya” instead of “Jha,” he told Sports Illustrated. And although he’s “a celebrity in the table tennis world, he lives in obscurity otherwise, as very few people in America care about the sport,” he told the magazine. But it has taken a toll financially, he said on the Team USA blog. “Traveling, going to tournaments, having a private coach, you take that financial risk with only the hope you can become a top player and hope the investment pays off,” he said. “But unless you’re in the top 1 percent of your sport, it’s very hard to earn a living being a professional athlete.”

Jha started playing table tennis in California when he was five years old and his passion for the sport grew over the years. His parents — Arun and Karuna — first noted their son’s passion for table tennis as a young child. The family would go to the India Community Center in Milpitas, and when the center launched a table tennis club, Kanak and his sister Prachi immediately wanted to try out the sport, according to Sports Illustrated. “He was hardly taller than the table, but he started beating players twice his size,” Sports Illustrated said. He “topped his sister in the U.S. table tennis ratings (the rankings system) when he was just 12.”

His father Arun told KTVU that his son’s “eye-hand coordination, his movement, his speed, his passion, is like unending energy.” He said his coaches told him and his wife that if they give their son “the right training in the right environment, it could mean something in the future as a success.” Jha’s mother Karuna also recalled that time to Sports Illustrated. “America is the land of dreams. What am I doing here if I don’t let my son follow his,” she wondered at the time. 

When Jha started traveling abroad for tournaments, he was just 11, and his mom decided to travel with him. She told Sports Illustrated that she “felt strongly about teaching him some of the core values she learned from her mother as a child in Mumbai. It didn’t matter to her if he won matches; it mattered to her that he was honest in the process.” 

When Jha moved to Sweden, he was 15, and still in high school, his sister, Prachi, went with him. He eventually settled in Germany, training and competing there. Through all the highs and lows, he persisted. 

Now in Paris, his third Olympics, Jha aspires for a gold medal, which he describes as “the cherry on top of a journey filled with physical, mental and emotional obstacles..” That is the “biggest dream, the ultimate goal,” he told the Team USA blog. I believe I’m stronger than I have been in the past Games. I’m on my way up right now. Each day I’m getting better since my comeback. It’s going to be a tough task, but everything is open. I believe I can make my dream a reality.”

(Photo, World Table Tennis, X (Twitter))