Dehradun teen walks away with silver

Buenos Aires, October 16

Suraj Panwar, hailing from a small village near Dehradun, ended India’s search for an athletics medal at the Youth Olympic Games, winning silver in the men’s 5000m race walk event. The 17-year-old Panwar, who had finished second in Stage-1 of the event four days ago, won Stage-2 on Monday by clocking 20 minutes 35.87 seconds, and this enabled him to finish second overall.

In a new format, there are no finals in track and field events (with the exception of 4km cross-country) in Youth Olympics and each event is held twice, with results from both rounds counting towards the final standings.

Panwar had finished second in the first stage in 20m 23.30s, behind Patin Oscar of Ecuador. Oscar, who finished second in Stage-2, won the gold with timings of 20:13.69s and 20:38.17s.

Panwar’s total time of 40m 59.17s was over seven seconds slower than Oscar’s 40m 51.86s. Puerto Rico’s Jan Moreu finished third.

This is India’s first athletics medal in this YOG and third overall. In the inaugural YOG in 2010, Arjun (men’s discus throw) and Durgesh Kumar (men’s 400m hurdles) had won a silver each. 

“It’s a great feeling... I had put in a lot of hard work for the Games,” Panwar said. “My next target is to better my performance here and win a medal in the senior level also.”

Tough start

Panwar’s life has been full of hardships. His father, who was employed with the forest department, passed away in the early 2000s. Panwar was a little child then. He and his two brothers were brought up by their mother in difficult circumstances, from her earnings from a modest government job.

Panwar started in athletics in his village, Kaarabari, as a runner, but later shifted to race walking. As he started to do better, he moved to Maharana Pratap Singh Sports College in Dehradun, to be mentored by Anoop Bisht. Bisht has coached several race walkers, including Manish Rawat, who figured in the 2016 Rio Olympics.

After he moved to Dehradun, his expenses increased. His two older brothers, still students, chipped in. Shubham, the eldest, began to give tuitions, and Neeraj got employed in a hotel in Jaipur.

“I knew little about race walking when I was running in my village but after I failed in sprint events, I tried race walking. We have some good names from Uttarakhand like Manish and Chandan bhaiya, so it was good to follow that path,” Panwar told scroll.in. “I called him (Bisht) one day and told about myself and he said come to the academy. Since then I have been training under him,” he added.

Panwar won gold in 2016 and bronze in 2017 in the Junior Nationals, and silver at the Youth Nationals in 2017. The YOG silver is by far his greatest achievement. — PTI, agencies

India’s boxing challenge over 

India’s boxing challenge ended at the very first hurdle after former world champion Jyoti Gulia (51kg) lost her quarterfinal bout to Italy’s Martina La Piana. Jyoti was the lone Indian boxer to qualify for the Games owing to her world title but lost in a unanimous 0-5 verdict to the Italian. The 17-year-old from Haryana was expected to do well at the event given that she was coming off a gold winning performance at the Silesian Open in Gliwice, Poland, last month.