Bhawna Jat Height, Age, Boyfriend, Husband, Children, Family, Biography & More

Some Lesser Known Facts About Bhawna Jat

• Bhawna Jat is an Indian athlete who is specialized in the 20-kilometre race walk. She is the first Indian female athlete in this category to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics. Her tally of 1 hour 29 minutes and 54 seconds in the national race walking championships in Ranchi 2020 is well inside the Olympic qualification time of 1:31:00.

• She held the record for the fastest Indian female in this category until Priyanka Goswami broke it on 13 February 2021.
  

  Bhawna Jat at National Championship 2020 at Ranchi

• She began her senior career in 2016 during the National Inter-state Championships in Hyderabad where she completed her race at 1:52:38s.

• Her journey started in 2010 when her physical education trainer Mr Hiralal Kumawat introduced her to sports. It all came by luck when her trainer was taking the village children to the district-level competition of athletics when he met Bhawna. Bhawna was grazing her cattle. He asked her to come for which she agreed. By the time they reached the competition, the slots for most of the events were full. The only slot left was 3 Kilometre race walk. Bhawna joined that slot.

• She would practice in the early morning so that the villagers won’t see her wearing a short.

• She is from a poor family. She can’t afford the shoes so had to walk barefooted in her very first game where she came second. Motivated by this, Bhawna entered the national level competition and came fourth.

• Her journey started to accelerate when she won the gold medal at the west zone junior-level competition in 2014 and a silver medal the next year. Her battle with poverty continued in her first few games when she used to walk barefoot and then in slippers. It was only until her brother bought her a pair of shoes worth Rs 500.

• To support her family, she joined Indian Railways as a ticket collector in 2016 at Howrah, West Bengal. But that simply meant that she will get less time to train as an athlete.

• She wanted the paid leave from her job but Indian railways stood the condition that paid leave will only be granted if she plays at the inter-railway competition. The reason behind her paid leave was that she has taken a loan from the bank for her elder brother’s treatment of Rs. 2 Lakh.

• She couldn’t compete in her first game in 2017 due to typhoid but manage to grab the bronze in 2018. This medal allowed her to take a year of paid leave to get trained.

• She started showing her mark from thereon by winning both the inter-railway title and the National open championship in 2019. Her coach remarked on her splendid performance by saying that
  

  She’s a natural walker. Her action is very clean and she rarely commits faults. Even when she had an injury and suffered from typhoid, I was very confident that she would eventually become a very strong walker. After the inter-state gold, I was very confident she would qualify for the Olympics if she kept her focus on training.”

• But despite her performance at that level, she wasn’t given paid leave after that. On the other hand, she can’t take unpaid leave as she had to get trained at Rohtak where she needs to spend money on accommodation and other living expenses. Finally, she made her decision to head towards Rohtak.

• Her other brother was working in Jaipur in a private firm. He was also an athlete. He agreed to help her. So, he took a loan after quitting the job assuring her sister not to worry. Bhawna’s decision to come to Rohtak was criticized by many.

• Her coach remarked on that phase of her life that
  

  Once she made the choice to train in Rohtak and subsequently in Jaipur, there was little he expected to stop her. “She is the most dedicated athlete you can hope for.”

• She was improving day by day. Finally, the time of the national race walking championships 2020 in Ranchi has come. She was leading from the first kilometre itself and was technically correct during the race. Finally, she won that game and qualified for the Tokyo Olympics.
  

  Bhawna Jat after reaching the finish line and qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics 2020

• She then joined the SAI Training centre Jaipur, Rajasthan where she is undergoing training under the supervision of Gurmukh Sihag her coach. Till June 2021 she hasn’t competed in any international event at the junior or senior level.

•  She didn’t know about the Olympics before 2011 and now she is representing India in this mega event.