Swapna Overcomes Pain to Win India’s 1st Heptathlon Gold at Asiad

Swapna continued to be among the top three all throughout the two-day long event.

Swapna is the first Indian women to win a gold in heptathlon.

(Photo: AP)

• Swapna Barman clinched gold in the women’s heptathlon at the 18th Asian Games.
  
• Swapna is the first Indian heptathlete to win an Asian Games gold.
• She scored a total of 6026 points.
  
• Out of the seven events, Swapna finished first in high jump and javelin throw. She came second in long jump and shotput.
  

Despite competing with a severe toothache, Swapna Barman created history on Wednesday by becoming the first Indian heptathlete to win an Asian Games gold.

Swapna wore a tape on her chin and right cheek for the entire length of the competition since she was suffering from a severe toothache.

I used to eat a lot of chocolates, so I have a teeth problem. It started paining two days before the event. It was severe but I could not let years of hard work go waste. So I forgot the pain and gave my best.

Swapna Barman

(For more news and updates from the Asian Games, click here.)

The 21-year-old Barman logged 6026 points from the seven events competed for two days. En route the title, she won the high jump (1003 points) and javelin throw (872 points) events and finished second-best in shot put (707 points) and long jump (865 points).

Her weakest events were 100m (981 points, 5th position) and 200m in which she finished seventh with 790 points.

Going into the 800m run, the last of the seven-event competition, Barman was leading China's Qingling Wang by 64 points. She needed a good run in the concluding event, in which she eventually finished fourth.

It was the same event after which she had collapsed during the Asian Athletics Championship last year in Bhubaneswar but despite finishing fourth on Wednesday evening, she emerged a champion.

Swapna, who has six toes in both her feet, finds it difficult to train in normal shoes.

I have got this gold on the National Sports day, so it’s really special. I use normal shoes worn by people who have normal five toes. It really pains during training. It is very uncomfortable, whether I wear spikes or normal shoes.

Swapna Barman

Another Indian in the fray, Purnima Hembram was 18 points behind Japan's Yuki Yamasaki, going into the 800m run, but she finished just ahead of Barman and overall fourth with 5837 points.

Qingling (5954) won the silver and Yamasaki the bronze medal with 5873points.

Before Barman, only Bengal's Soma Biswas and Karnataka's J J Shobha and Pramila Aiyappa had returned with a medal from the Asian Games.

Biswas and Shobha had finished two-three at both Busan Asian Games (2002) and the Doha Games (2006), while Pramila had won a bronze at the Guangzhou edition.

(With inputs from PTI)