Gold medallist Gongutri Bordoloi’s cycling dream may have ended even before it took wing. Five years back, the girl from Nagaon in 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 U21 Girls Road Race at the Khelo India Youth Games on January 13. “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 at the KIYG in Guwahati.
“I was a sprint cyclist earlier, but the injuries mean that I can’t burst through quickly now,” she said, “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.”
As much as crashes 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 medalling.
“I was hoping to win gold today, but even the bronze is good,” Chayanika said. “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,” she added.
Jivan Bora, the cycling head coach at the Directorate of Sport, Assam kept to himself the whole of Sunday when the Assam contingent missed out on the podium in every category of the time trials.
“I didn’t want to speak to anyone, without having performed,” he said. “Now our athletes have won medals, so of course I’m walking with my chest puffed and my head high,” he said.
Gongutri and Gogoi both train at the SAI Centre in Delhi now, having been selected for the National Camp in 2018.
