Watching Neeraj win, tilling farm: Gunjan Yadav’s road to Youth Olympics gold

After Gunjan Yadav became the second Indian boxer – and the first woman – to win a Youth Olympics gold medal, father Harbhagwan was reminded of an incident back in 2024.

Gunjan, then 15, had just lost in the semifinals of the junior nationals. Harbhagwan took his daughter to the family’s seven-acre farmland in Dhana Kalan village near Hisar, and asked her to work in the cotton field with him for a day.

“I wanted to see Gunjan’s resolve. She worked through the day, digging the field. We (Harbhagwan and his brother Ram Avatar) rested but she continued. I realised that day that Gunjan will conquer the world with her willpower,” Harbhagwan told The Indian Express after his daughter registered a unanimous 5-0 win over Algeria’s Bouthaina Bensalah in the women’s 48kg final in Dakar, Senegal on Thursday.

It was in 2021 that Gunjan asked her father to put her in a sport after she watched Neeraj Chopra win the javelin gold at the Tokyo Olympics. The family took her to Mahavir Stadium to train under coach Jyoti before she shifted to Manjeet Lohan Boxing Academy in Hisar, where she learnt the ropes under coach Vikas Lohan.

The decision meant that Gunjan’s mother Suman, who was taking tuitions in the village, had to shift to Hisar with her daughter and son to stay in a two-room rented floor with Harbhagwan managing the farmland at their village.

Gunjan Yadav with her family after winning the Asian Championships silver medal earlier this year at Hisar. (Special Arrangement)

“Gunjan told us that she wants to win a medal in the Olympics like Neeraj Chopra,” says Ram Avatar.

The decision brought with it financial issues, recalls Harbhagwan.

“My wife had a job at a school in Hisar with a salary of Rs 12,000, apart from taking tuitions. The rent of the city accommodation was Rs 8,000. We brothers earn about 30,000 monthly from the farmland. A lot of times, we took loans to manage,” he says.

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The youngster would win the sub-junior and junior national titles before a silver medal in the Asian Junior Championships and another in the U-19 Future Cup earlier this year.

Getting ready

Coach Vikas Lohan remembers that working on Gunjan’s physical strength was his first task.

“She had good foot movement but the first task was to make her physically strong. We would spend a lot of time getting her to run 100m, 400m sprints as well 10km runs on the roads near the village. Once her stamina and endurance power was built, we worked on the technical aspects of boxing. Her straight punches were good but we worked on her straight right and left hook,” says coach Lohan, a former boxer himself.

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At Dakar, Gunjan got a bye in the first round before a unanimous 5-0 win over Atena Sofia Calero of Mexico in the quarter-finals. In the semi-final on Wednesday, she scored a 4-1 split decision win over favourite England’s Lily Bassett, who had only lost one of her 48 amateur bouts.

Lohan describes how his trainee utilised her right cross and left hook to unsettle her opponents.

“The English boxer had a strong upper left punch. Gunjan countered her with a right cross as well as a left hook. She showed that against the Algerian opponent in today’s final as well and controlled the bout right from the opening round,” he shares.

National boxing coach Geeta Oinam Chanu believes the Indian boxer will benefit a lot from this outing and the next target will be to move to the 51kg class as soon as possible.

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“Gunjan uses her long reach well. Her straight right punch is very good. With time, she will add more power and that will come in handy among the seniors and when she moves to 51kg,” feels Chanu.