Bhawna Jat

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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 wont see her wearing a short.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 brothers treatment of Rs. 2 Lakh.She couldnt 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.