Nineteen-year Supriti Kachhap, from Jharkhand's Gumla district, bettered a previous best Athletics Federation of India national youth record of 9 minutes and 50.54 seconds in the 3000 metre girls’ category race. She completed her race in 9 minutes and 46.14 seconds, racking up a gold medal at the Khelo India Youth Games.
Kachhap burst onto the scene in 2019 when she won a silver medal at the National Cross Country Championships in Mathura. She also won a silver medal in the 2021 Junior Women’s National Athletics Championship.
Supriti’s mother, Balmati Devi, couldn’t hold back her tears and recalled those haunting days of struggle when she would find it difficult to support her five children after she had lost her husband to the Naxals.
"Supriti toh chal bhi nahin sakti thi jab iske pitaji ko Naxals ne maar diya tha. (Supriti could not even walk when her father was killed by the Naxals). I have struggled to support my children all these years. She loves running and always tells me that if her father was alive today, he would have been proud of her achievements. We know he has been watching over her… When she returns home, we will keep her medal at our home in Burhu village,"she expressed in a conversation with the Indian Express.
Supriti was scouted by coach Prabhat Tiwari in an inter-school contest, where she was representing her then school St Patrick in Gumla. Under Tiwari’s tutelage, she took admission at the Jharkhand Sports Training Centre in 2015. Supriti practised under the guidance of former national champion Pratibha Toppo in the SAI Middle and Long Distance Academy in 2018. Toppo explained how Kachhap’s workload was gradually increased in order to acclimatise her body to greater mileage and speed. She also emphasised the importance of gaining extra weight in order to compete at higher levels.
"Since we focus only on long-distance events, we were impressed by Supriti’s endurance levels. She lacked a bit of speed initially. So we had to work on sprints, muscle memory and increase her running mileage per week. From making her run close to 80 km per week, we increased it to 110-120 km per week. She needs to gain more weight according to her body, for targeting medals at the senior level, and can be a bright prospect for the 2026 Asian Games."Prabhat Tiwari
Prior to the Khelo India Youth Games, Supriti aced a 5,000 m qualifier race for the U-20 World Athletics Championship to be held in Colombia this year. She finished in 16 mins 33 seconds against a qualification benchmark of 16 minutes and 40 seconds.
(With inputs from The Indian Express.)
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