While growing up, Kamalpreet Kaur had no idea about her future or what she wanted to do. But, she was sure about what she doesn’t want to. To have a different fate than a lot of other girls, not to marry any young.
Kabarwala village, just like a lot of other villages, has seen girls being married off very early. Kamalpreet wanted to do something else, but she wasn’t sure what was that.
When she was around 13, her academic results weren’t too good. Probably, that was the first time the future flashed before here. She doesn’t come from a rich background, so, to keep things in check, she would need a job. She believed that getting into sport could change things.
She wanted to become a professional cricketer at first, but when she met her PT Teacher, she got into the shot-put throw, thanks to her physique. She once came fourth in the shot-put during state games.
Later, when she went on to join the Sports Authority of India (SAI) at Badal, Mr. Preethpal Maru, the coach, suggested she take up the discus throw. Since then, there was no looking back.
Her father was always supportive but her mother didn’t want her to go through the trouble of staying in a hostel among others. Nothing really could stop Kamalpreet at that time. She stayed in the hostel near the SAI, and her food wasn’t as good as she expected. Rotis used to be uncooked but she had no choice as she came got into this all by herself, against the wish of her mother.
No, she still wasn’t completely into the sport earlier but was just hanging in. She hated training, the diet. Of course, waking up early is definitely not for everyone.
Still, she went on to win a bronze medal in the junior nationals in Bangalore in 2013. She knew she could have gone for Gold, but she didn’t try that hard.
However, the medal and the appreciation, attention that came with it was the motivation factor she needed. Everything changed right from that moment, and she wanted to dominate the sport. The medal became her obsession since then.
Soon, when she got into the SAI hostel, everything changed, starting from the food to her discipline. She trained harder and a couple of years later, she became the under-18 as well as under-20 national champion in 2016.
This helped her to get to her first international tournament, the World University Games in Taipei. She ended up at the sixth spot there. With that, she got a job at the railways but that salary wasn’t enough to run the family as well as to take care of the training.
2019 was one of the biggest years for her. After a fifth-place finish in the Asian Games at Doha, she won the 2019 Federation Cup Senior Athletics Championships and most importantly, she got GoSports Foundation sponsorship.
Right when things were looking bright, the pandemic took over. She didn’t have access to the gym. Thus, she had to come up with new ways to keep fit. flower pots became dumbells, double beds became weights. She ran through the field and kept things under control.
Recently, in March, at the 24th Federation Cup Senior Athletics Championships in Patiala, she broke her own national record with 65.06m. A month later, she broke her own record, threw 66.59m during the Indian Grand Prix-4 to grab a ticket to the Tokyo 2020.
Until Monday, not many Indians knew about discus throw but Kamalpreet Kaur made millions to tune into the sport to watch her play. She shouldered their hopes. Maybe, the pressure was just too much that she looked nervous throughout and the rain wasn’t helping her either. In the end, with 63.70m, she ended at number six.
The numbers might not show but Kamalpreet has already achieved something big. With age by her side, Tokyo 2020 is just a start.
