Manipur has another name to add to its short list of international athletics medallists. Bhumeshwory Devi Huidrom, a 22-year-old middle-distance runner from Huidrom Awang Leikai, won bronze in the women’s 800m at the Asian U23 Athletics Championships in Ordos, China, on July 12.
Huidrom clocked 2:10.20, edging out China’s Gejing Zhu by three-hundredths of a second to take the final podium spot. Uzbekistan’s Jonbibi Hukmova won gold in 2:08.41, while Japan’s Kurumi Sugure took silver in 2:09.42. The result places Huidrom among a small number of athletes from Northeast India to win an individual medal at a continental athletics meet.
Her path to the podium in Ordos began in 2017, when she joined the Sports Authority of India’s National Centre of Excellence at Takyel in Imphal. After that programme was discontinued, Huidrom relocated to Bhopal to continue training rather than step away from the sport. She now trains at the SAI National Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru under Italian coach Claudio Pannozzo, part of the reshuffling of India’s middle-distance programme in recent years.
The bronze came on a strong day for Indian athletics at the meet, with the country picking up three bronze medals across events, but Huidrom’s medal carries particular weight back home: sustained international results from Manipur’s athletics pipeline have been rare even as the state has produced medallists in boxing, weightlifting and wrestling.
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Image: Imphal skyline, file photo — not a photograph from the championships described. Credit above.