February 2018 witnessed a landmark event in the history of Indian sport – the first ever Khelo India School Games (KISG). Young athletes from all over the country competed with one another, and won laurels for their respective states. Here’s a list of six winners in the athletic (track and field) events, and a look at what the future could hold for them:
1. Nisar Ahmed
The winner of the boys 100m sprint, 16-year old Nisar Ahmed clocked 10.76 seconds during KISG, breaking his own junior national level record. When 2011 world 100m champion Yohan Blake turned 16, his best-recorded timing was 10.56 seconds – just 0.2 seconds better than Ahmed’s.
Blake went on to win the silver medal in both the 100m and 200m races in the London Olympics. Ahmed, from Delhi’s Azadpur slum, is the son of a rickshaw puller and housemaid. He is among the 14 chosen athletes to undergo a month-long training by Glen Mills, Usain Bolt’s coach, at the Racers Track Club in Jamaica.
2. Sumathira Balakrishnan
Gold medallist in the Girls 400m event, Sumathira Balakrishnan, daughter of a farm labourer from Tamil Nadu, completed the race in 56.39 seconds.
Nine-time Olympic medallist Allyson Felix’s personal best at the age of 17 was 55.01 seconds, just a 1.38 seconds better than Balakrishnan’s.
Felix won a silver in the 400m event at the Rio Olympics in 2016, and is a six-time Olympic gold medallist across her various events.
3. Aparna Roy
Kerala’s Aparna Roy won the 100m hurdles with a timing of 14.02 seconds. At the under-17 level, Sally Pearson’s best timing was 14.01 seconds in the same event. Pearson was the silver medallist in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the gold medallist in the 2012 London Olympics in the 100m hurdles. Roy was adjudged the best athlete among the girls at the KISG.
4. Ancy Sojan
Ancy Sojan, also from Kerala, won the girls long jump event with a jump of 5.80m. When Rio Olympics gold medallist Tianna Bartoletta turned 18, her best outdoor jump was 6.29m, about half a metre longer than Sojan’s. Sojan also seized the silver medal in the 200m, with a timing of 25.31 seconds.
5. Bhupender Singh
Sojan’s male counterpart, Bhupender Singh jumped 7.04m to win the boys long jump. At 18 years of age, Jeff Henderson’s personal best outdoor long jump was 7.41m, only a third of a metre better then Singh’s. Henderson won the gold for the event at the 2016 Olympics.
6. Abhishek Singh
Abhishek Singh won the shot put event, with a throw of 18.73m. The best distance Ryan Crouser had thrown when he was 19-years-old was 19.3m, about half a metre longer than Singh’s throw. Four years later, Crouser won the gold at the Rio Olympics. Singh was declared the best athlete (boys).
This is just a sample of few of the young athletes in India. Through the games, the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs has identified the talent and has a plan in place to nurture them.
Union Sports Minister and Olympic silver medallist Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore has set aside Rs 1.75 crore for this initiative. With this fund, he aims to improve the overall sporting economy in the country, including infrastructure, competition and coaching.
Scholarships worth Rs 5 lakh will be provided to a thousand athletes every year. Going forward, the ministry is focusing on adopting schools and colleges to convert them into sports institutions and is developing a similar model for college level athletes.
If things go according to plan, we might even see some of these athletes, and many others, on the podium in 2020.
(The author is a young writer with keen interest in sports.)
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