How a former food delivery agent and now gym instructor took Bharati Vidyapeeth’s youth rugby team to the podium
KIUG Ashtalakshmi:
Guwahati, February 25: Defending champions Bharati Vidyapeeth lost the core of their rugby team that won the gold in Lucknow last year as most of them passed out and came to the 4th Khelo India Univeristy Games, Ashtalakshmi, without any expectations of a podium finish.
But the team with almost all new players was marshalled brilliantly by Prashant Arvind Singh, who works as a gym instructor in Mumbai, to clinch the bronze medal at the Indira Gandhi Athletics stadium and the joy on the faces of Prashant and his teammates was understandable.
Bharati Vidyapeeth, who had won gold medals in the first and third edition of KIUG, had to put together the current team at a very short notice and had players from different cities. The players were training individually at their respective centres and had managed to train together only for 15 days at the Bombay Gymkhana grounds before flying in to Guwahati.
Mumbai-based Prashant, who comes from a family of sportspersons, took upon himself to build this team and in Guwahati was the nucleus around whom the team rallied during their matches.
“Our team is completely new. The players are from different cities like Kolhapur, Satara, Pune and Mumbai. It is a big thing for us to reach the podium because we reached here after only 15 days of preparation. The players kept practicing in their cities and due to this there was a lack of bonding in the team. We will return next year with better bonding and preparation and win our third gold,” said Prashant, who has also represented India at the U-19 level and was part of the silver medal winning Maharashtra team in the National Games held in Goa last year.
Prashant’s father, who is a newspaper vendor, was an athlete and his mother was a district level kabaddi player. Both had always encouraged their children to take up sports as a career.
But financial problems had forced Prashant to take a break from the sport and focus on earning a living by doing odds jobs as delivery agent for a few years.
“I fell in love with this game in my childhood. But the financial condition of the family was not good. Hence, I stayed away from sports and took up a job for a while. From 2017 to 2020, I worked as a food delivery agent to support my family and even today I work as a gym instructor. But sports is my first love.
“I have always had the support of my family. Due to household responsibilities, first my elder brother left the game and then I (followed). However, on the repeated insistence of my Mumbai teammate Govind, I began playing again in 2021,” he added.
Prashant’s focus now is on preparing for the recently-announced Premier Rugby League. “The announcement of Rugby League is a big news for us. I have been playing for a long time, so I am hoping to get a chance in the league. Rugby needs a league like this. This will generate money and then players will be able to focus only on their game.”
ABOUT KHELO INDIA UNIVERSITY GAMES 2023 ASHTALAKSHMI
The Khelo India University Games is a multi-discipline sports event aimed at promoting sports and fitness among university students in India. A vision of Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi and organised by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India, it provides a platform for young athletes to showcase their talent and compete at the national level. The Khelo India University Games Ashtalakshmi 2023, being staged over the seven states of north-east India, feature an array of sporting disciplines including athletics, rugby, basketball, volleyball, swimming, badminton, hockey, fencing, kabaddi, football, tennis, mallakhamb, judo, table tennis, boxing, shooting, weightlifting, archery, wrestling, and yogasana. The Games are aimed at finding the talent that will make the nation proud in global sports tournaments.
