A 22-year-old middle-distance runner from Huidrom Awang Leikai has given Manipur a rare podium finish on the continental athletics stage. Bhumeshwory Devi Huidrom won bronze in the women’s 800m at the inaugural Asian U23 Athletics Championships in Ordos, China, on July 10, clocking 2:10.20 to touch the line just 0.03 seconds ahead of China’s Gejing Zhu.

Uzbekistan’s Jonbibi Hukmova took gold in 2:08.41, with Japan’s Kurumi Sugure claiming silver in 2:09.42. India fielded a second entrant in the event, Vaishnavi Rajendra Rawal, who finished fifth in 2:10.83. Huidrom’s medal came on a productive second day for the Indian contingent, which also picked up bronze through Shakeel in the men’s 800m and Abhay Singh in the men’s 200m — the latter India’s first individual sprint medal at the meet.

Huidrom’s journey to the podium began in 2017 at the Sports Authority of India’s National Centre of Excellence in Takyel, Imphal. When that programme was discontinued, she relocated to Bhopal to keep training, a move that eventually earned her a place in IOCL’s Project Shakti, a high-performance athletics initiative backed by SAI, the Athletics Federation of India and Indian Oil Corporation with an eye on the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. She now trains at the SAI centre in Bengaluru under Italian coach Claudio Pannozzo.

Her domestic record already included gold at the Indian Grand Prix and the Open Athletics Meet, along with a silver at the 64th National Inter-State Senior Athletics Championships. The Ordos bronze marks her first individual medal at a continental meet and places her among a small number of Northeast Indian track athletes to reach an international podium.

Former Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh congratulated Huidrom on social media on July 12, calling the result “a proud moment for the country” that reflected her “exceptional talent, dedication and hard work.”