Taunts of villagers, opposition from parents & back injury couldn't stop Pragyan's stride
Pragyan, who won the 100m hurdles event at the World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze level meet at Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar, was ridiculed by the villagers for training in shorts. They even told her parents to stop encouraging her to become an athlete. As for her parents – both of whom are teachers – they, too, weren't keen on seeing their child choose athletics as a career.
"Being teachers, they always forced me to study.
They kept saying, 'You don't have any career in sports, you won't get money in this, you should stop wasting your time'. They even hid my shoes at times so that I would miss my training," recollected the 25-year-old after her win.
Despite the challenges, she didn't let go of her dreams. She woke up every morning, travelled 40 km by train and trained under coach Kalinga Mohapatra, who is no more.
"I used to go to the ground just to stay fit but my coach spotted me and told me that I have the potential to do well in athletics.
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After I took it up seriously, I really felt good. I thought to myself that this was life," added Pragyan.
All her hard work finally paid off when she won a silver in the 100m hurdles at the 3rd South Asian Junior Athletics Championships in Colombo in 2018. It not only gave her a huge boost but also changed the mentality of the villagers and her parents. There was no stopping her after that as she kept winning multiple medals in the national stage.
But tragedy struck during the lockdown as she suffered a fracture in her back while working out at the gym at her home town. "It was completely my fault because I was working out in a bad posture. As a result, for two years, I was off the track and I thought my career was over," she added.
However, that wasn't the case as she was later selected to train at the Odisha Reliance Foundation High Performance Centre and completely recovered under their guidance.
Later she started training under Rohit Mane and then James Hillier in Mumbai and is currently the third-fastest Indian woman in 100m hurdles behind Jyothi Yarraji and Nithya Ramraj. She has a personal best of 13.15 seconds which she achieved last year during the Inter State Senior Athletics Championships in Panchkula.
But now Pragyan is aiming to go below 13 seconds but it's not going to happen anytime soon as she is nursing a hip flexor tear in her right leg. She even had spasms in her left leg but despite the double injury won the event on Sunday.
"My season is over for now but I want to qualify for the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games next year," she further added.
While it's not going to be easy, she has the fighting spirit to achieve the feat.
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