"All of the cars were once just a dream in somebody's head," sang Peter Gabriel in "Mercy Street," his elegy to the poet Anne Sexton. One such dream car appeared in the head of Subramaniam Raman, a former Indian national champion who played in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Raman, now the coach of India's highest-ever ranked player, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, had an epiphany about how to motivate his student to even greater heights. Currently ranked one spot behind India's evergreen Sharath Kamal Achanta at world #32, Gnanasekaran rose as high as #24 last year. "Investing in top talent and motivating them with a reward is key to climbing new peaks!", tweeted Raman, describing how the goal of "Sathiyan 2.0" is to reach the top 12 in the world. Then came the big reveal, the carrot at the end of the stick: "Sathiyan will be gifted with a luxury car for achieving any of these, or even an Olympic Quarter-final." This certainly got Gnanasekaran's engine revving. "Thank you so much, sir, for the big surprise," he counter-tweeted. "Let's do this together! MISSION SATHIYAN 2.0," he continued, complete with throwback smiley-face emoticons. Gnanasekaran has already obtained his engineering degree while steadily climbing to his historic ranking. While he clearly does not want for internal motivation, his legendary coach Raman can certainly claim a lot of credit if Gnanasekaran medals in Tokyo. After all, a dream strategically planted in somebody's head can be a real driving force.

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