The Chhattisgarh

Tag: khelo india games

  • Khelo India Games 2023: Assam Girl Pahi Borah Learned Swimming In Lake, Now Wins Gold Medal In 200m Breaststroke; Read Her Story From Tezpur To Podium Finish At KYIG | Other

    Far from the glittering waters of an Olympic-size pool, Pahi Borah learned swimming in a lake, and had to use makeshift bamboo arrangements to dive and somersault. But the talent and passion of the 14-year old from Tezpur, Assam, has carried her seamlessly from a lake to the pool. At the 6th Khelo India Youth Games in Chennai on Sunday, Pahi added the 200m breaststroke gold medal to the 100m breaststroke silver she had won a day ago.

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    Egged on by coach Partha Pratim Majumder from the sidelines, Pahi ended up shaving around three seconds from her previous personal best to clock 2:41.32 seconds in the 200m backstroke final.

    When she delivered the news to her father, he told her, ‘my daughter is blooming like a lotus in a lake.’

    Pahi’s father Hemanta, now a sub-inspector in the Sashastra Seema Bal and a former national-level swimmer, was determined to make his daughter a swimmer too. When Pahi was just two, he would throw her into the pool in Delhi, where he was then posted, to get her used to the water.

    “Older men nearby would scold him about what he was doing to his daughter,” Pahi said with a smile. “My mom would have tears in her eyes.”

    However, Hemanta’s tactics helped Pahi get over her fear of water, and soon, she would become obsessed with swimming too.

    With Hemanta’s job being transferable, Pahi moved back to Tezpur along with her mother and younger brother. Now Tezpur did not have a proper pool. But that was not going to stop Pahi, even though conditions in the nearby lake were vastly different.

    “The water is very heavy in the lake, and very light in the pool. But whatever I have learned is in the lake,” said Pahi.

    Dibyajoti Hazarika was Pahi’s coach then, and Hemanta would also pitch in to teach his daughter after managing to get a transfer to Tezpur. Pahi went on to win a medal at the sub-junior nationals, but her technique, forged in the lake, needed to be tweaked to make it work better in the pool.

    She then applied for the Sports Authority of India-Glenmark Aquatic Foundation program at the National Swimming Academy at Talkatora Stadium, and was selected last May. She moved to Delhi, where coach Majumder has refined her technique.

    “You need a combination of technique and capacity as a swimmer. It is said that a swimmer has to be tall to succeed. Not necessarily. Look at her,” coach Majumder said, pointing to the short Pahi.

    Photo Caption: Assam’s Pahi Borah (swimmer) won the 200m breaststroke gold medal at the 6th Khelo India Youth Games in Chennai on Sunday.

  • Khelo India Youth Games: Judoka Shahin Comes From Gujarat’s ‘Mini Africa’, Clinches Gold In 57kg Category; Read Her Incredible Story | Other

    One would mistakenly count Shahin Darjada, seated with cornrows decorated with beads on her head, as some sports fans enjoying an outing at the indoor hall of the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium where the judo competitions of the ongoing Khelo India Youth Games are being held. Hailing from Jambur village, popularly known as the ‘Mini Africa’ of Gujarat, Shahin walked away with a gold medal in 57kg category with a convincing win over Himachal Pradesh’s Rupanshi in the final.

    There are a couple of more players hailing from the region, situated around 20km from Gir, and has served as a home to Siddi community, which is of African origin.

    Shahin, who recently won a silver medal at the Asian Junior Judo Championship in Tashkent, now has two gold, one silver and a one bronze from her four appearances in the Khelo India Youth Games.

    “It was an easy bout for me. The opponent did not trouble me as I carried experience of four Khelo India competitions. It was my opponent’s first Khelo India final. I was in complete control of the bout right from the beginning. Happy that my Khelo India journey comes to an end with a gold,” she said after winning the final.

    The 18-year-old said her performance started to improve once she shifted to the Vijayi Bharat Sports Academy (VBSA) in Ahmedabad where she started training under Georgian coach, Lasa Kizilashvili from 2022.

    Speaking about her future, Kizilashvili said “She trains hard at the academy. She follows every instruction given to her. A promising future lies before her. If you ask me, she is an Olympic material.”


    A Class 12 student of Somnath Academy in her native village, Shahin is one of the six siblings and counts herself as a fortunate one to have supportive parents. Shahin’s father works in the government circuit house while her mother is a housewife.

    “It was in 2016 when my father first took me to a sports academy, and I had no clue about which sport to pick. I spent around two years at the DLSS (District Level Sports School) in Rajkot where I finally found judo as an interesting choice, and then got my skills fine-tuned at another academy in Nadiad for the next five years and went on to win my first KIYG gold (in Guwahati),” she recalled.

    Last year, she participated in the junior World Championships and that experienced helped her pocket the gold medals at the junior National Championships and the Cadet Nationals.

    “My coaches Lal Krishnan Baghel and Lasa Kizilashvili have been really supportive, and instrumental in my transformation. I have been able to get international exposures which has boosted my confidence, and gearing up to bag a gold in my final KIYG,” she said.

    While she has another couple of years in the junior circuit, Shahin has her eyes on the big stage, and hopes to fulfills her parent’s wishes by representing India at the highest levels.