GUWAHATI: Gold medallist at the Khelo India Youth Games here, Assam cyclist Gongutri Bordoloi’s cycling dream would perhaps have hit a dead end, if her mother had her way.
Five years back, the girl from Nagaon district in central Assam, suffered a massive road accident while training. It left her with a broken collarbone and multiple lacerations, injuries that kept her off the saddle for over a year.
“When she saw my state, my mother put her foot down, and told me to give up the sport,” the 17-year-old said, proudly eyeing her gold medal from the under-21 girls’ road race on Monday.
“But my father, a policeman, stood by my side, fought for me and made me cling on to my passion when I could have been down and almost out,” she said.
“My dad is a fighter, my inspiration. He said if at all I have to quit it has to be on my terms, not because I had an injury,” she explained.
With a gold medal in her pocket now, Gongutri can bury the idea of quitting for good. Not that she was really contemplating it.
In an exciting road race, that wasn’t without its own challenges — where a back row scuffle left nine competitors injured and unable to finish — it was Gongutri’s late surge that won her the gold.
“I was a sprint cyclist earlier, but the injuries mean that I can’t burst through quickly now. I switched over to the pursuit and the road recently. Even today I was nervous, because I didn’t want to crash. I saw the commotion behind me and ensured I wasn’t near it,” she said.
As much as crashes and injuries are part and parcel of the sport in the mass start, Gongutri seems to suffer more than others.
At the road nationals in Bikaner last year, it was another crash that put paid to her chances for gold. She fell off the bike, clipped back on, and won back enough places to clinch silver behind her Assam team-mate Chayanika Gogoi, then.
Now, it is her at the top of the podium, with Chayanika in third, a two-place lockdown that thrilled locals at the track no end. In an event designed for spectacle, there was no better advertisement than two local girls competing for the yellow metal.
“I was hoping to win gold today, but even the bronze is good. A small mechanical issue pushed me back a little today. But it’s a valuable lesson. I have to check these things much before the race,” Chayanika said.
Gongutri and Chayanika both train at the SAI Centre in New Delhi now, having been selected for the national camp in 2018, and credit the facilities there for their performance.
