Rawat’s amazing journey to Olympics
WINTER OLYMPICS The Uttarakhand skier was introduced to winter sports at Highaltitude Army Warfare School
CHANDIGARH: Jagdish Singh Rawat joined the Army to supplement family income. Nine years later, he will participate in the Winter Games with fivetime Olympian Shiva Keshavan as teammate.
Before joining the Army, Rawat had no idea of winter sports. On February 16, this 26-year-old skier will compete in the 15km cross-country in Pyeongchang.
Like with many sportspersons, Army changed his life. “It was only after joining Army that I got a chance to experience skiing and at that time, I never imagined that these blades would give me an opportunity to represent the country at the world’s highest sporting arena,” said Rawat.
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
Rawat is from Kaflori, a remote place in the Chamoli district of Uttarakhand. With a quarteracre of land as the major source of income, life was hard for this son of an ex-serviceman. The eldest of four siblings in a family of six, Rawat was expected to supplement the earnings and in 2009, he joined as a sepoy with Garhwal Rifles. He was 17 and had just completed school.
After training, Rawat was shortlisted for High-altitude Army Warfare School (HAWS). It was only after being selected to HAWS in 2011 that Rawat got to know what skiing was.
“In our village most of the people have small landholdings, so the youth are either dependent on Indian army and paramilitary forces for a living or they have to look for menial jobs in big cities.
› In our village most of the people have small landholdings, so the youth are either dependent on army and paramilitary forces for a living.
› I learnt to ski as it was a mandatory part of training but even at that time I had no idea that skiing would take me places.
JAGDISH SINGH RAWAT, on how he took to skiing
FASCINATED BY ARMY
“So, my first preference was the Army as from childhood I was fascinated by the uniform. Being from the rough terrains helped me to clear the physical test.”
“I learnt to ski as it was a mandatory part of training but even at that time I had no idea that skiing would take me places.” Rawat made his international debut in the 2013 World Championships in Italy. He also participated in the Winter Asian Games held in Sapporo, Japan last year.
“Had it not been for the Army, I would not have even imagined participating in such an expensive sport. An international standard skiing kit costs ~4-5 lakh.
“I still recall a time when we didn’t have even ~10 to spend and the best way we used to enjoy the fair was watching kids having rides,” said Rawat.
His trip to South Korea got delayed because of a tiff between Winter Games Federation of India (WGFI) and the Army over who would accompany Rawat as coach.
Finally, the Army forwarded the name of 2014 Olympian Nadeem Iqbal as Rawat’s coach and it got cleared by the Indian Olympic Association.