Swapna's dream comes true

Swapna Barman wrote her name in history books yesterday after becoming the first athlete from India to win a gold medal in the Asian Games heptathlon event.

The 21-year-old from Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, beat her more fancied competitors, and many an obstacle, to clinch gold at the GBK stadium in Jakarta.

Her story is special as she did not have only poverty to conquer, but also a physical imperfection on her way to success.

Born into poverty with a father who became paralysed five years ago, Swapna's family was run by the pittance managed by her mother who worked at a tea garden.

But that was only part of her struggle as she had to overcome the oddities bestowed on her at birth. She was born with six toes on each foot, which made it hard for her to slip into standard sized shoes. A fifth-place finisher in Incheon four years ago, Swapna had trained for this Asian Games with shoes that were much smaller for her feet.

Her main worry ahead of the games was not how she would fare in the competition, rather it was getting the right shoe for the high jump, one of the seven disciplines that make up heptathlon.

"I never had customised shoes and I've been managing with a model which is unfortunately no longer available in India. I still have an old pair of them and I'm going to use them in Jakarta," she had told Reuters during her training in India.

She tried different brands before having to make do with standard-sized shoes.

Every landing with those small shoes was is painful and the shoes did not last long either, but she has so far resisted the suggestion to have her extra digits surgically removed.

Knee and ankle injuries kept her out of training for nearly a year before she made a comeback in June.

But fitting shoe or not, the 21-year-old finished top of the pile in high-jump as she did in shot put and javelin throw while finishing second in long-jump. However, she did not do so well in sprint events, which are not her forte.

During the two-day event, Swapna maintained her position among the medal contenders before the final event, the 800m. She finished with a time of 2:21.13, earning 803 points; enough for her to win the event.

The 21-year-old ended the competition with 6,026 points, with China's Wang Qingling winning silver with 5,954 points and Japan's Yuki Yamasaki taking bronze with a tally of 5,873 points.