Neeraj Panwar hadn’t visited home in a year; but almost immediately after his brother Suraj Panwar won a silver medal in the men’s 5000m race walk at the Youth Olympics in Argentina, Neeraj boarded the first bus to Delhi from Jaipur and then on to Dehradun, where his family lives in Kaarabari village.
There are no celebrations planned at home but Suraj has definitely given his family all the reasons to celebrate. Not only is he the first Indian sportsman to win a medal in athletics at the 2018 Youth Olympics Games in Buenos, he also ended India’s drought for an athletics medal at the Games.
After winning two medals in athletics at the 2010 Games in Singapore, India returned empty handed from the Nanjing Games four years later. Thanks to Suraj’s silver medal in the Men’s 5000m race walk, India will at least return with one medal this time around.
“He is winning medals for the country. We never imagined he could make it this big when he began practicing with the boys in the village. He began winning some medals in school and then in district meets. We did not even know when he became so good,” Neeraj says.
The 17-year-old had raised hopes of a medal-finish with a second place finish in Stage-1 of the race four days ago behind Oscar Patin of Ecuador. But the positions reversed in Stage-2. In combined timing, Suraj finished second.
“This is a different feeling. I knew after stage one that I have to be ahead of the Chinese runner to confirm a silver and that is all I did. This medal might bring more support for me and hopefully I can continue winning medals,” Suraj tells Scroll.in from Argentina.
Patin won the gold medal with a combined timing of 40:51:86 (20:13.69 and 20:38.17), seven seconds ahead of Suraj who had a combined timing of 40:59:17 (20:35.87 and 20:23.30). Puerto Rico’s Jan Moreu finished third to get the bronze.
Undoubtedly, this is Suraj’s biggest medal yet in his short career of four years. Training on rocky tracks in his village, he began with sprint running in 2012 but after failing to given any results, he switched to race walking.
“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,” he says.
For better performance he moved to Maharana Pratap Singh Sports Academy in Dehradun under coach Anoop Bisht who has trained Rio Olympian and former national silver medallist Manish Rawat.
“I called him one day and told about myself and he said come to the academy. Since then I have been training under him. He is the best coach for race walking. I have improved a lot and slowly I want to achieve more at the senior level and qualify for the different Games,” he says.
Raised by a single mother after the death of his father who was employed in the forest department, in early 2000s, Suraj and his two brothers struggled to make ends meet. Thanks to his mother’s Group-D job, they survived. After shifting base to the Dehradun academy, his expenses also increased. He could not ask his mother for money simply because she did not have any or would have questioned why he wants such expensive shoes.
“Panch hazar ke jutein mein aisa kya hain jo panch sau vale mein nahi hai? This is the first question my mother asks whenever I ask her for anything. It’s very difficult. I am not even wasting it but investment on sports was a big no,” he says.
As Suraj’s expenses grew, the brothers chipped in. The eldest, Shubham, who is still studying to get a job began tutoring and Neeraj found a job in a Jaipur hotel.
“He has not even seen father, I think. He was one or two-years-old when he passed away and since then it has been our mother who has taken care of us. The government officials do visit our home when he wins any medal and assure us... you know how it is,” Neeraj says.
Before the silver in Argentina, Suraj won a silver medal in the 10,000m at the Youth Olympic Games’ Asian qualification meet in Bangkok. However, he was a late entry to the Games in Argentina and got his accreditation only in the final days leading up to the deadline.
The constant improvement in results saw Suraj win the silver medal at Youth Nationals in 2017. At the Junior Nationals, he won a gold in 2016 and a bronze medal in 2017. After the silver medal at YOG, the Dehradun lad is focussed on winning medals at the senior level.
“I am now focused to better this achievement. It is start and the race is still long. If I keep winning like this, I will have a job and my family would be happy. My career would also continue so this is all I want now,” Suraj says.
Back home, his family is figuring out an appropriate welcome or if they can manage to receive him at the airport, for a start.
“There is a marriage in our house in the last week of October so we are busy there. I think he will come back on Monday so it will be very difficult for us to receive him at the airport. But at the very least, the brothers can go. He will be happy,” Neeraj says.
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