Striking the Balance: Priyanka Khellawan’s Pursuit of Excellence

The in­ter­sec­tion of sport and ed­u­ca­tion serves as a pow­er­ful mech­a­nism for hu­man de­vel­op­ment, as it has the po­ten­tial to fos­ter a healthy mind in a healthy body- Mens sana in cor­pore sano. Yet the per­sis­tent gen­der im­bal­ance with­in glob­al sport­ing struc­tures con­tin­ues to com­pro­mise the full po­ten­tial of sport. As the glob­al sports com­mu­ni­ty pre­pares for the up­com­ing 9th In­ter­na­tion­al Work­ing Group (IWG) Glob­al Sum­mit on Women and Sport in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land, the man­date to move “Be­yond the Break­through” aligns pre­cise­ly with the Unit­ed Na­tions Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDGs)—specif­i­cal­ly SDG 5 (Gen­der Equal­i­ty) and SDG 4 (Qual­i­ty Ed­u­ca­tion)—by fram­ing ath­let­ic eq­ui­ty not as a con­ces­sion, but as a fun­da­men­tal right. This holis­tic ap­peal aligns with Pope Leo XIV’s recog­ni­tion that ‘sport helps ma­ture the hu­man per­son by fos­ter­ing dis­ci­pline, hu­mil­i­ty, and right re­la­tion­ships, and with Nel­son Man­dela’s en­dur­ing con­vic­tion that sport pos­sess­es a unique, trans­for­ma­tive pow­er to unite peo­ple and in­spire glob­al change.

In this in­ter­view, ta­ble ten­nis play­er Priyan­ka Khellawan [PK] em­body this very dual pur­suit, shar­ing how she nav­i­gates the rig­or­ous de­mands of acad­e­mia and com­pe­ti­tion while ad­vo­cat­ing for a fu­ture where gen­der is nev­er viewed as a lim­i­ta­tion.

AR: Can you give us a snap­shot of who Priyan­ka Khellawan is?

PK: My name is Priyan­ka Khellawan, I am 21 years old from Gas­par­il­lo. I am a fi­nal year stu­dent read­ing for a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence in Eco­nom­ics with a mi­nor in Man­age­ment In­for­ma­tion Sys­tems at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St. Au­gus­tine Cam­pus. Out­side of Ta­ble Ten­nis, I am an avid crick­et fan es­pe­cial­ly of the Roy­al Chal­lengers Ben­galu­ru (RCB) and I al­so en­joy cook­ing and read­ing. These in­ter­ests help me main­tain bal­ance and pro­vide a re­lax­ing out­let away from train­ing and aca­d­e­mics.

AR: What or who sparked your en­try in­to ta­ble ten­nis?

PK: My grand­fa­ther, Haz­are Gopaul, in­tro­duced me to ta­ble ten­nis when I was about 7 years old, and I be­came com­plete­ly ab­sorbed with it from the very be­gin­ning. Along with Wal­lace Coomans­ingh, he coached me through­out my time as a mem­ber of Petrotrin Sports Club, un­til its clo­sure. They both played sig­nif­i­cant roles in shap­ing my de­vel­op­ment as a play­er. In 2022, I be­came a mem­ber of the Pow­er­gen Ta­ble Ten­nis Club. One in­ter­na­tion­al play­er whose style

I par­tic­u­lar­ly en­joy is Lux­em­bourg’s Lu­ka Mlade­n­ovic. He plays with an an­ti-spin rub­ber on his back­hand, just like me, and I ad­mire how he utilis­es it to dis­rupt the rhythm of his op­po­nents. That tac­ti­cal as­pect of ta­ble ten­nis is es­pe­cial­ly en­joy­able.

AR: What have been some of your ma­jor suc­cess­es in ta­ble ten­nis?

PK: I have been com­pet­ing na­tion­al­ly since 2014 and one of my great­est suc­cess­es has been win­ning three gold medals at the Caribbean Re­gion­al Ta­ble Ten­nis Cham­pi­onships. I won the Un­der- 11 Girls’ Sin­gles in 2016 fol­lowed by the Un­der -13 Girls’ sin­gles ti­tles in 2017 and 2018. In ad­di­tion, pri­or to tak­ing a break from com­pe­ti­tion in mid-2024, I was con­sis­tent­ly ranked among the top three Un­der-19 fe­male play­ers and with­in the top five women play­ers na­tion­al­ly. These ac­com­plish­ments rep­re­sent years of hard work, com­mit­ment and sup­port from those around me.

AR: What ac­counts for your suc­cess?

PK: I be­lieve main­tain­ing com­po­sure and be­ing able to think clear­ly un­der pres­sure are es­sen­tial qual­i­ties for any ath­lete. Ta­ble ten­nis is a sport that re­quires split-sec­ond de­ci­sion-mak­ing, and the abil­i­ty to ex­e­cute a plan when the stakes are high can make all the dif­fer­ence. Re­silience has al­so been a ma­jor fac­tor in my jour­ney. I have al­ways be­lieved that no mat­ter the score­line or out­come of a com­pe­ti­tion, there is al­ways an op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn, im­prove and come back stronger. That mind­set has helped me over­come chal­lenges and con­tin­ue striv­ing for suc­cess.

AR: How do you bal­ance ta­ble ten­nis, aca­d­e­mics and so­cial life?

PK: Bal­anc­ing all three can cer­tain­ly be chal­leng­ing at times. I try to stay or­gan­ised by plan­ning my days care­ful­ly and en­sur­ing that I al­lo­cate suf­fi­cient time to each area of my life. There are pe­ri­ods when aca­d­e­mics be­come par­tic­u­lar­ly de­mand­ing, and sac­ri­fices have to be made, whether in train­ing or so­cial ac­tiv­i­ties. How­ev­er, I al­ways make a con­scious ef­fort to re­store that bal­ance when­ev­er pos­si­ble. I be­lieve that suc­cess is not on­ly about ex­celling in one area but al­so about main­tain­ing a healthy and ful­fill­ing lifestyle over­all.

AR: As a young woman, what are your thoughts on play­ing sports and pur­su­ing ed­u­ca­tion in 21st cen­tu­ry Trinidad and To­ba­go?

PK: It is in­cred­i­bly em­pow­er­ing to be able to pur­sue both sport and ed­u­ca­tion. To­geth­er, they have giv­en me a sense of pur­pose and di­rec­tion while help­ing me be­come a more dis­ci­plined

and dri­ven in­di­vid­ual. As a fe­male, I be­lieve that it is im­por­tant to recog­nise that our gen­der should nev­er be viewed as a lim­i­ta­tion. In­stead, it is a strength that we can em­brace and chan­nel in­to achiev­ing our goals. To­day, more op­por­tu­ni­ties ex­ist for women than ever be­fore, and I hope more young women con­tin­ue to chal­lenge them­selves and pur­sue their am­bi­tions with con­fi­dence.

AR: What is on the hori­zon for you in ta­ble ten­nis?

PK: Since tak­ing a hia­tus from na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion in 2024, I am hop­ing that my par­tic­i­pa­tion in the UWI Games 2026 serves as a step­ping stone to re­turn to com­pet­i­tive ta­ble ten­nis. My goal is to re­gain mo­men­tum, re­turn to the na­tion­al cir­cuit, and once again com­pete at a high lev­el.

AR: What ad­vice would you like to share with young peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go?

PK: I firm­ly be­lieve that sport and ed­u­ca­tion are a pow­er­ful com­bi­na­tion for per­son­al de­vel­op­ment. Hav­ing been train­ing and study­ing since the age of sev­en, I can con­fi­dent­ly say that the many qual­i­ties I val­ue to­day- dis­ci­pline, ded­i­ca­tion, re­silience and time man­age­ment- were strength­ened through sport.

My ad­vice to young peo­ple is nev­er to be­lieve that they must choose be­tween aca­d­e­mics and ath­let­ics. With the right mind­set, de­ter­mi­na­tion and sup­port sys­tem, it is pos­si­ble to ex­cel in both. Have faith in your abil­i­ties, re­main com­mit­ted to your goals, and nev­er un­der­es­ti­mate what you can achieve through hard work and per­se­ver­ance.

Priyan­ka Khellawan’s jour­ney bold­ly chal­lenges the an­ti­quat­ed cul­tur­al be­lief that sport and ed­u­ca­tion are mu­tu­al­ly ex­clu­sive paths. She rep­re­sents a ris­ing gen­er­a­tion of young women dis­man­tling the tra­di­tion­al bias that forces a choice be­tween in­tel­lec­tu­al and ath­let­ic de­vel­op­ment. Her re­silience and dis­ci­pline prove that sport does not di­min­ish aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess; rather, it for­ti­fies it.

Ed­i­tor’s note: The views ex­pressed in the pre­ced­ing ar­ti­cle are sole­ly those of the au­thor and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion in which he is a stake­hold­er.